Degenerate
by blueschist
Summary: Amalia was absolutely convinced that she was some sort of freak show magnet. Being followed by a socially inept manchild was never a good thing, and as the saying goes: "too much of a bad thing will absolutely, irreversibly screw up your life."
1. Earth-born Stranger

ABOUT THE STORY AS A WHOLE: the story is mostly plot-focused, with the main pairing being Hilda (here known as Amalia) and N. It's not really a happy, feel-good relationship fic, and any happily-ever-after is going to be a loooong time in the making! I have taken some liberties regarding the source material, since I wanted it to seem, idk, somewhat close to real-life? Sometimes I like to sit back and imagine pokemon existing in the real world, how it would change our lives. Would things be better, or just the same? Even in a fictional universe where we have colorful animals that love us and have magic powers, there are still gonna be really bad people around. Regardless of the setting, humans are humans, imperfect and sometimes unpredictable. That's what I want to portray.

I include content warnings before every chapter that needs them. While the main relationship is straight, most characters aren't, lol.

also, i usually post links and other things at the bottom of each chapter as 'footnotes' but for some reason fanfic dot net's draconian filters don't like that. so uh, I did the best I could.

* * *

Amalia frowned as she exited the Accumula Pokémon Center, having just spent nearly forty-five minutes trying to register her amanita dot net account. She headed for the bus stop a couple streets away, eager to get to Striaton as soon as possible.

It wasn't something she had wanted to do, because really, who wants to spend three-quarters of an hour filling out virtual paperwork, but it was necessary if she wanted to be able to catch more than six pokémon or do much of anything else related to pokémon training or battling. The whole account registration process was made exceedingly overcomplicated in the name of security, and it reminded her a bit of the two neopets accounts she had lost due to registering under fake birthdays when she was eleven. She thought solemnly of her shoyru, tWiligT_PRinCESsxxx, who would never again see the light of cyberspace, and she patted the strap of her backpack to make sure her spinarak's pokéball was still securely clipped on. Good.

She cut through Accumula Park, skirting the edge of a large crowd of people who were probably there for some demonstration. Whatever it was, Amalia didn't care.

"Amalia! Over here!" She looked around, wondering how any of these people would know her name, but spotted Cheren in her peripheral vision right as he grabbed her arm to pull her deeper into the crowd.

"Cheren, what—"

"I dunno, I think there's some kind of demonstration going on."

"I couldn't tell!" She had thought that, after living in this city for eighteen years, he of all people would know better than to pay attention to any of the silly things that went down in the Park. What was it this time? A juggler? A spontaneous production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar put on by students at the local university? That Mr. Mime interpretive dance troupe?

"No, no. Don't look at me like that! This is different. I mean, check it out. Look!" Cheren pointed towards the wooden stage, at a figure whom Amalia could sort-of recognize as one of their regional politicians, whose name escaped her at the moment. What was he doing here?

He stepped up to the podium and waited a few moments for the crowd to quiet down. Amalia, for the life of her, could not remember this guy's name. She was sure she had heard it thousands of times before, but she had never really cared enough to pay attention. It should have been so familiar! Rick? Rodney? Dennis? Dennis sounded about right.

Dennis Garcia, which is what Amalia decided his name was, began to speak: "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As many of you know, I am Ghetsis Harmonia, your regional representative."

Or, you know, his name could be Ghetsis.

"Now, we are all aware that Pokémon play an extremely significant role in each of our daily lives. Whether we are trainers or not, we can rest each night knowing all that we've done, and all that we will do, could not have been possible without Pokémon.

"This has been the situation since the very founding of our region thousands of years ago. I'm sure we are all aware of the myths of legend, where two heroes united our land?"

There was a murmuring among the crowd. Yes, everyone was aware of that story. It was practically impossible not to be, since it had been shoved in the face of pretty much every child who had gone to public school.

"And I'm sure we are also aware of the ending to the tale, the twin brothers locked in a bitter rivalry, their two Pokémon acting out their violent struggle against each other?"

The crowd murmured again. Ghetsis smiled. It was slightly crooked, yet amiable.

"Now, many of you may be wondering why I chose to speak to you today. Just this morning, one of my associates asked me 'Mr. Harmonia, what is the purpose of your speech today?' Well, dear friends, I came here not to be questioned by the media, but to pose a few questions of my own.

"Many of us are under the impression that Pokémon and humans need each other, that it is a symbiotic relationship from which both parties benefit equally. How is it though, that this is considered truth? How can we, as human beings, be so sure that this is how our Pokémon see things?"

He paused. The crowd was silent in thought.

"Such a belief is merely rooted in human assumptions; there is no scientific evidence to support it. However, there is scientific evidence that proves that Pokémon are capable of human intelligence. My friends, these creatures are not animals; these are individuals, just as you and I!

"Yet every day, these individuals are pushed around and forced to fight based on the selfish whims of their trainers, and are called 'friends'. They are forced to work for us, with no say in the matter, and are considered our 'partners'. They do our bidding, whether they want to or not with little to no compensation. Tell me, does this not remind you of slavery?

"I ask you, people of Accumula and of the entire Unova region, how can we, in good conscience, allow for the perpetuation of such an unfair, unequal relationship? What does that say about us, as human beings, when we actively support the confinement and manipulation of intelligent, free-thinking individuals?"

He paused for effect. During the silence, a man standing somewhere behind Amalia spoke, almost to himself: "I… I don't know…"

Ghetsis slammed his hands on the podium, producing a loud crack that resonated through the air. "You don't know because you don't want to acknowledge it! Our country is a society built off of slavery, whether of Pokémon or of people, yet we just refuse to see it! We, as a people, have been blinded by our own comfort!

"Our nation's twin heroes fought for justice and truth, yet even they ignored their Pokémon's wishes! I'll ask you again: did the heroes' Pokémon fight of their own accord, or were they merely puppets, serving out of an unwanted obedience?

"My friends, I am not asking you to release your Pokémon. I am merely asking that next time you throw your 'friends' into battle, or unload crates with your 'business partners', please consider how they feel, what they want. Pokémon are individuals, and I just ask you to consider them as such. Thank you for your time."

The politician left, a trail of photographers and reporters following in his wake. The people in the crowd were left in shock.

"Are we really...?"

"Are my pokémon really unhappy with me like that?"

"Is that really how they feel?"

"But we can't just change things, our economy depends on…"

Amalia just rolled her eyes as the people began to leave. What a waste of time.

"Even I have to admit, he is quite skilled with words," Cheren remarked.

She gave him an incredulous gaze. "Cheren, please tell me you aren't gonna give up on your dream just because some crusty old white man made you doubt yourself."

Cheren looked disgusted. "Oh, no, I was merely making a statement. Really, I thought you knew me better than that. I don't give up on my goals so easily. Besides, pokémon and people are friends. We help each other out."

"I know, it's just, I mean… you saw what the other people were saying."

Cheren shrugged. "Well, Ghetsis is a politician, and a fairly popular and well-respected one at that. People tend to listen to authority figures."

Amalia bit her lip and looked around the nearly empty park, tuning out her friend's bleak political rant. She and Cheren were really the only people still standing around, save for a green-haired youth who was probably lingering behind to pass out pamphlets for some obscure interest group. Even so, the boy didn't look very professional, what with his long, unruly hair and casual clothes. He looked like the kind of person her brother would hang out with, smoking a joint behind the science building during lunch hour.

She'd glanced in his direction only briefly, yet that was somehow enough time for him to turn around and catch her gaze. Amalia quickly looked away. Weird. Hopefully he wouldn't approach them.

He approached them.

The man came to a stop a few feet away from her, and she pointedly looked in the opposite direction. "Um…" the strange guy said in a voice barely audible over Cheren, who was still talking. Amalia pretended not to notice. The guy tapped her on the shoulder, and even though Cheren had stopped talking, she tried to ignore this too.

Cheren pointed behind her. "Uh, Amalia, there's—"

She hesitantly turned around. "Yeah, uh." she gave a little smile, "hi, uh, are you… are you lost?"

She hadn't noticed it before, but now that he was standing right in front of her, she saw that he was kind of tall. He looked to be a couple inches taller than Cheren at least and was nearly half a head taller than she was. His grey eyes were open wide, and his face wore an expression that was a mixture between excitement and apprehension. Amalia couldn't quite put her finger on it, but he just wasn't... he didn't seem normal.

She didn't get to dwell on it, for as soon as she had turned, the guy had released her shoulder, taken a step back and started talking.

"YourPokémon… justnowitwassaying…"

He spoke very fast, in a manner that seemed almost frantic, and his hands were wrung together so tightly they were almost shaking. She could barely understand the words that had come out of his mouth, and the ones she did understand she couldn't believe. Pokémon talking? Yeah, right. That only happened on television.

"Whoa, whoa, there," Cheren interrupted, "I think you need to slow down, okay? I don't think we caught what you were saying. Did-did you just say something about pokémon… talking?"

"Yes!" The boy said with barely-contained excitement. He seemed to regain his bearings a second later, taking a deep breath as he did so, before struggling to continue speaking at a more moderate speed. "Yes, they're talking."

Amalia and Cheren made brief, worried eye contact. What the hell was going on?

The boy's eyes shifted back and forth between their confused faces.

"Oh, I guess you two can't hear it, either…" He said, his shoulders slumping a little bit and his eyes moving from Cheren's face to hers. He looked downwards and continued speaking, almost to himself. "…How… sad."

Amalia and Cheren looked at each other again, this time with matching looks of apprehension.

The boy smiled at her. It unsettled Amalia, not because he was a stranger, but because of how positively childlike his smile was. His teeth, while not horribly misarranged, were slightly crooked, with his prominent canines overlapping the adjacent teeth. It was a smile more suited to a nine-year-old child than a nearly six foot tall man. If Amalia hadn't been so creeped out by the boy's mannerisms alone, she would have found it mildly refreshing that not everyone in America was obsessed with orthodontics. "My name is N."

"That's nice," Amalia said, wanting to get out of this conversation as quickly as possible. There was no way she was gonna tell this guy anything about herself.

"Oh, well, my name is Cheren, and my friend here is Ama—" Amalia glared at him. "What, Amalia?!"

N didn't seem to notice or understand the two friends' silent argument. "Amalia," he said while looking at her, "that's a good name…"

A chill went down her spine. Amalia saw many possible outcomes for this situation, and they all ended with her being dead in a ditch.

Cheren adjusted his glasses. "Yes, well, ah, nice meeting you N, but we're kind of busy and we really should be—"

"You're Pokémon trainers," N stated.

"Well, yeah…. I guess so," said Amalia, crossing her arms.

"Why?"

Amalia looked at Cheren. "We plan on entering the championships next year," he said, "and, um, filling the Pokédex that Professor Juniper gave us. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason…" N knitted his eyebrows and looked away. "I was just thinking, though. To complete the Pokédex would require the confinement of many, many Pokémon." He looked at her face and frowned. "I'm also a Pokémon trainer, yet I can't help but wonder… is that truly what's best? Are Pokémon truly happy that way?"

Amalia shrugged.

N stepped backwards and made eye contact with her. "Amalia! Let me hear your pokémon's voice again!"

"What, seriously?" N had already let out a Purrloin, so yeah, _seriously_ , and she panicked just a little bit. She fumbled incompetently for Hecate's pokéball, dropped it on the ground, scrambled to pick it back up and finally let her Pokémon out of its ball. Fortunately this was the hardest part of the battle. Hecate quickly went to work tying up the other Pokémon with her string shot.

N looked thoughtful. "I never expected to hear Pokémon say such things…"

Amalia, who had been petting her adorable spinarak, looked up. "What are you talking about? Are you going to tell us what this is about?"

He ignored her outburst with a brief hand motion, and briefly looked at her face before gazing into the distance. "No matter… as long as Pokémon are confined in pokéballs, they'll never reach their full potential, they'll never become perfect beings." He placed particular emphasis on the word 'perfect,' enunciating the word as if each letter was of utmost importance.

"I will change the world," he continued, "It will become a better place for Pokémon, because they are my friends."

N walked a short distance away from them before abruptly turning around again, as if he had something else to say. He seemed to stand there for a while before he actually said anything.

"…I guess I'll, uh, um…" he struggled for words, before finally shaking his head. "…just, never mind…" he said, before walking off.

After he had disappeared from sight, hopefully to somewhere far, far away where Amalia would never see him again, she turned to Cheren. "Wow, what a freak. Was he… was he crazy?"

He opened and closed his mouth several times. "I… I guess? I certainly can't think of anything else that would explain… whatever just happened."

They laughed uneasily. Cheren looked at his watch. "It's 5:30. The next bus to Striaton should be here in about 20 minutes, if I'm remembering the schedule correctly." He sighed. "So much for racing Bianca, she's probably beaten us there. Anyway, I aim to start training at the gym as soon as possible."

Amalia hadn't really planned on challenging any gyms, but having Cheren as a friend meant that she didn't really have a choice in the matter. He liked to make everything into a competition, from seeing who could make the best grades in their high school graduating class (he had lost that one) to shit like seeing who could complete normal, everyday tasks the quickest. For Cheren, winning wasn't just the outcome of a game, winning was a way of life, and from the moment they had learned that the Unova championships were open to anyone with eight badges, Cheren had known that he wanted to win it. Amalia was just along for the ride, as far as she was concerned, and sure, maybe she'd enter the championships too, because why not? The worst that could happen was losing, if she even made it there in the first place. Professor Juniper had told them that working on the Pokédex could count towards college credit, and though Amalia had no idea what college she would go to or what she wanted to do with her life, that's all she needed to hear. And if all that meant spending loads of time with the baby spinarak her father gave her, then she was totally cool with it.

* * *

I started this in 2011/2012, wrote 45 pages, and then lost interest for five years. Forgive me if some things are a little anachronistic. Also I live in Texas. That's important for you to know, because I've only been to New York once, and I was like 7 years old. And Unova was based off New York...

Anyway, I originally started this bc I thought N was attractive way back in the dismal days of high school/1st year college (i was into weedy long haired guys), but I was kind of grossed out how everyone was like romanticising how fucking creepy he comes across as. So I wanted to write a story where he's creepy, and is considered creepy by the narrative, and that his bad actions are treated by the narrative as bad. This way he can grow as a person, like he does in the games.

Originally Amalia had tepig, but I... didn't want to have tepig as a final member of her team, and a subplot that revolves around her starter pokemon caring about her falls kinda flat and loses steam if she abandons her starter as soon as she gets something more interesting, lol. I'm really not enthusiastic enough about the gen 5 starters, or any starter that isn't blaziken, so please forgive me for admitting that I wouldn't be able to tell as good a story if i kept her with tepig. I was already planning on ariados being central to the plot, so I just, yknow, consolidated things. Don't worry, tepig is still in the story, you'll see!

Footnotes: 1) a childlike smile: japantoday dot com /category/lifestyle/view/why-japanese-women-go-for-fake-crooked-teeth (delete the spaces)  
2) originally, the website in the first fucking line of this story was written NORMALLY LIKE IT WOULD ACTUALLY APPEAR IN THE SEARCH BAR BUT NOOOOO, THAT TRIGGERS THIS GODDAMN WEBSITE'S GARBAGE FUCKING HYPERLINK FILTER? WHY? im so FUCKING incensed.

Also, this is posted on AO3, and I'd prefer it if you read it there. I mainly post my fics on so I can have a cohesive library of them.


	2. Visions to Rule

content warning: animal cruelty, animal harm, gratuitous use of the fuck word

* * *

Due to a scheduling error, Amalia's gym match with the Striaton gym leaders had been moved up a couple of hours. She was originally set to battle at four o'clock, and planned to spend her morning getting in some last-minute training, but instead she had been called to the arena at 10:30, still groggy from waking up at eight. Sure, she hadn't really needed those extra five and a half hours of training, but it was only noon and she was already finished with what she had thought would occupy her entire day.

Going to the Pokémon Center's computer lab sounded like a good idea, that way she could browse the internet or waste her time playing a game, but as soon as she turned the handle, she spotted someone else in the room. It was that guy, with the one-letter name, who had accosted her and Cheren in Accumula. He seemed deeply absorbed in whatever he was doing, frequently looking down at the keyboard and typing out a sentence one letter at a time. He was so focused on the task that he probably wouldn't have noticed if she entered, but Amalia wasn't going to chance it. So that was a bust.

Around one pm, after getting a bagel from a nearby shop, she visited the Striaton Pokémon Library, which also had a computer lab she could use. She sat down, got her stuff situated, opened up Mozilla Delphox, put her earphones in to listen to some David Bowie and was promptly interrupted by Cheren. He had a copy of _Pokémon Battling for Dummies_ in his left arm, the caricature of a man staring condescendingly from the book's spine. Always respectful of library policies, he challenged her to a battle right then and there. She won, they were kicked out of the library, and that was that. Cheren headed off to do whatever, and now it was one fifty-seven and Amalia had nowhere to go.

Out of sheer boredom, Amalia found herself exploring the Dreamyard, a steel-mill-turned-homeless-camp. Thinking about it now, it probably wasn't the best idea to go alone, but so far she had only encountered three homeless people, one of which had a friendly one-eyed stoutland named Captain.

There really wasn't anything dreamy about the Dreamyard, save for the fact it smelled like a place where dreams went to die: with the faint aroma of iron and coal dust, and just a hint of piss. The place had been a thriving integrated steel mill in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but had been abandoned once the Great Depression rolled around. The building had never been torn down, and its halls and rooms were now strewn with debris from the crumbling building and litter from the many homeless people and wild pokémon who now called the place home. The building was obviously a public hazard, what with the cracked and unstable walls, and the old, inoperable furnaces and machinery, but Striaton's Building Department didn't seem willing to do anything about it. The whole place had probably been insulated with asbestos, to boot. Amalia could hear Captain barking in a distant part of the mill.

It was by complete chance that Amalia happened upon Bianca. She hadn't even known that Bianca was in the Dreamyard, running an errand for Dr. Fennel of Unova University, apparently an associate of Professor Juniper's.

"I'm looking for something called 'dream mist,'" she said, "it's pretty hard to find, but it's an important component in many medicines and treatments, y'know."

"Why can't Dr. Fennel just get it herself? Doesn't she have clearance to buy substances like that, as a researcher?"

"It's probably ridiculously expensive, I think. It's more cost-effective to harvest it from the wild than to buy it," replied Bianca.

They walked into a larger room of the factory. This room was open to the elements, with several large, broken steel converters lining the open wall. The roof was partially missing, allowing the plants growing on the floor to get adequate sunlight. This factory was apparently a lot older than Amalia thought.

Bianca tugged on Amalia's shirt to get her attention. "Amalia, look!" she whispered, pointing to a patch of grass near a hole in the wall. Floating among the tops of the weeds was a large, pink lump, looking right at Bianca.

"Amalia," Bianca whispered again, "I think that's the pokémon that we're looking for! It's supposedly able to control people's dreams."

The lump turned to the side… it had a floral pattern, like some sort of couch.

"It looks like a sofa, something you'd see in like, someone's grandma's living room," Amalia whispered.

Bianca rolled her eyes. "Just come on, Amalia," she said, slowly approaching the pokémon and motioning for Amalia to follow.

"A-HA!" yelled a male voice, almost from nowhere.

Bianca twitched in surprise. Amalia jumped. The pink pokémon did nothing.

"Shut up, dipshit! You're gonna scare the fuckin' thing!" hissed a shrill female voice.

Two hooded figures entered through a large hole in the wall and immediately lunged at the pokémon. The pokémon was slow to react. They easily grabbed it.

"Now we just gotta make it give us the dream mist," the young woman said.

"How do we do that? Is the dream mist like, inside or something? Maybe if we shake it real hard?" the man suggested dumbly.

"Ugh! Just shut up and hold the damn thing down!" she said as she aimed a booted kick at the pokémon.

Her foot connected with an almost cartoonish 'whump' sound. The pokémon squealed, squirming under the man's firm grip.

Amalia couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"Come on, munna! Cough up that dream mist for me, will ya?" the woman said before kicking it again. The munna let out another pained squeal.

Bianca was absolutely infuriated. "W-what ARE YOU DOING?!" she shrieked, running to where they were standing. Amalia followed.

The woman turned her head, noticing them for the first time. "What does it look like?" she sneered at them, "we're squeezing the dream mist outta it."

"This pokémon is apparently able to manipulate dreams," the male explained, "Our organization plans to harness this power in order to make people release their pokémon!"

The woman turned back to her partner. "You fucking idiot! They don't need to know that!"

"Your organization?" Amalia asked. Seriously, what was it, the dumbass rodeo? Did they honestly think they could use _dreams_ to manipulate people? That might work in some sort of convoluted video game plot, but this was real life!

The lady ignored her. "Anyway, we're gonna get this dream mist, if youse guys'll excuse us," the woman said, kicking the pokémon again.

Bianca was fuming. "So you think that KICKING it is going to get you what you want? That's horrible! That-that doesn't even make any sense! Stop it!"

The lady kicked it again, for good measure.

Bianca barreled into her, sending the woman tumbling to the ground. "I SAID STOP IT. CUT IT OUT."

The woman stood up, pushing Bianca off of her. "Ugh, get off of me! Self-righteous little cunts like you are the reason I joined this group in the first place! People like you don't deserve to have pokémon!" she said, sending out her pokémon and motioning for her partner to do the same.

They sent out a purrloin and a patrat. Hecate easily immobilized them, and Bianca's Snivy finished them off. It wasn't really a fair fight.

"Hmph! Well, this still doesn't change our plans. We're still getting that fuckin' dream mist!" She walked back to the pink Pokémon. It hadn't moved. It was still lying on the ground, wheezing in pain.

It was appalling that they were still at it. "Come on," Amalia started to say, "you can't be serious—"

"G-G-G-Ghetsis!" The man stammered, pointing at something behind his partner.

Amalia cocked her head. What did politics have to do with any of this?

"What?!" the woman said, her head whipping around. "Boss, w-what are you doin' here?"

Amalia looked around. The only other person she saw was a homeless woman fast asleep against a wall. Bianca just looked confused.

"Ah! He's over there, too!" the man said, looking in another direction.

The woman was almost pleading. "We're sorry! We won't mess up again, we promise!"

They were acting like someone was speaking to them, but Amalia couldn't hear anything, save for a high-pitched ringing noise coming from behind the back wall.

The man turned to his partner. "We better start making amends now before he gets any angrier!"

"Good idea," the woman agreed, and both of them ran off.

"What just happened?" Bianca asked. "Were they seeing things?"

"Sounded like a bad trip," Amalia replied.

Bianca knelt next to the munna, fishing for a potion and first-aid kit from her bag. "Those people were horrible. How could they do this to a pokémon? Is it going to be okay?"

The ringing noise got louder. A large, purple Pokémon emerged from behind the wall and sat next to the munna in an attempt to comfort it. A cloud of multicolored smoke was rising from a hole in its head. The smoke settled around the munna, calming it down while Bianca patched up its wounds.

So this was the Pokémon that produced dream mist. It was… a bean bag chair?

"Bianca, maybe this pokémon," said Amalia, waving her hand towards the Musharna, "is what made those guys hallucinate."

Bianca looked up at her. "So this is dream mist? I'll need to take it back to Dr. Fennel." She looked back at the small pink pokémon that was still wheezing on the ground.

"Amalia," she said, pulling a pokéball out of her bag and tapping the pokémon with it, "I'm going to take this munna to a Pokémon Center. It might have injuries that I'm unable to treat on my own."

"What about the dream mist?" Amalia asked.

"I'll come back for it later," she said, "I think this is more important right now."

Bianca turned to the musharna and patted it on the head, trying to reassure it: "Don't worry, I'll make sure she's safe. When I come back, she'll be feeling way better."

She got up and left, saying a quick "See you later" to Amalia as she did so. The musharna stared at her for a while, before retreating deeper into the building, leaving only Amalia and the sleeping homeless woman, who woke up and mumbled something that sounded like 'good morning'. Amalia handed her three dollars and left.

What had that been all about? Using dreams to make people release their pokémon? It reminded her vaguely of the speech that politician had given in Accumula the other day, about how humans were enslaving pokémon or something.

Wait a minute. Hadn't those guys mentioned the name of a politician when they were hallucinating? Ghetsis? That was the same guy who gave that speech. Maybe they had been inspired by it, and were so overcome with self-righteous furor they didn't realize that kicking a pokémon was just as bad as making it fight. Maybe they were just fanaticists, the extreme far end of the spectrum that would stop at nothing to achieve their goals. Ghetsis was much, much more moderate than those people. Heck, he was moderate compared to most politicians. It's possible that, even as a moderate, he's the closest thing to a candidate that aligned with their extreme beliefs.

Amalia checked the time on her phone. It was only five thirty. God, she hated Striaton.

* * *

The dreamyard was described as a "plant" in the games, but apparently everyone's like "it's a former research facility." Yeah, right. It's called the dreamyard because it's where dreams go to die, hence why there's a lot of homeless people.

Honestly though, it's probably a soothing place to be if you're homeless, because the munnas and musharnas can give you good, soothing dreams. And you know, the dream mist probably also makes your waking hours more relaxing, too, like the warm, fuzzy feeling of contentment. The homeless people who end up there probably start to gain a more positive outlook on life. In the pokemon world, dream mist is probably used as an ingredient in psychiatric medications, so staying at the dreamyard can help some of these people better manage their mental illnesses. It would be nice if the real world had something like that. Then Paul would still be alive.

Amalia may seem a little callous, but she's like 18 and (no offense to ya'll 18 or younger) but like most of us had shitty opinions at 18.

Footnotes: n can't fucking type lmao.


	3. VAMPOLKA!

content warning: references to animals eating each other, brief mentions of homophobia and antisemitism. sexual harassment. there's alcohol, but no underage drinking.

* * *

Spinarak and Ariados were rare in Unova, as they tended to prefer warmer climates. That being said, they could survive in the north, it's just that their evolutionary cousins, Galvantula, occupied the same niche and were way better adapted to the chilly weather. Amalia sat on a bench and watched Hecate subdue and devour a pidove and wondered if letting her kill and eat wild pokémon was something she should feel badly about. Pokémon ate each other in the wild all the time, but Hecate wasn't wild, and Amalia could just as easily go to the store and buy frozen rattata for her spinarak. Would that be more humane? Someone still would've had to kill those pokémon anyway, with or without Hecate, so maybe there was no morally superior option.

Amalia was aware of the way others regarded her pokémon. Hecate was a spider, and a non-native one at that, so other trainers usually reacted with some form of shock whenever Amalia sent her to battle. Sure, you could find some spinarak species as far north as Virginia or even Delaware, but that proximity didn't change the fact that many reacted to Hecate with disgust or fear. Professor Juniper had given Amalia a strange look when she chose to give tepig to her younger brother and instead take Hecate to travel Unova. Other trainers looked at her weird, too, some of them asking her what the hell Hecate even was. She tried not to think anything of it.

Amalia had spent a lot of time around spiders as a child; her father researched them for a living, so she never developed the aversion that consumed other people. Once she had grown tall enough to not be mistaken for food, Amalia was allowed to play with Charlotte, her father's ariados. Charlotte had never liked store-bought food, and Hecate seemed to be taking after her mother in that regard.

Was it really so weird for someone to love spiders? Amalia felt bad for anyone who thought that way. Hecate finished her meal and crawled into Amalia's lap, nuzzling into her stomach. Hecate had grown bigger in the past couple months and now weighed as much as a toddler.

"Wow Hecate," Amalia mused, "you're big enough to eat an entire baby."

Lenora was really nice. After Amalia had won her gym match, Lenora gave her free admission for Nacrene's Natural History and Science Museum and a tour of the museum's newest exhibit.

The exhibit was about dragon pokémon, the centerpiece of which was a huge Dragonite skeleton. It was a lot more interesting than it sounded, since Lenora and her husband were far more knowledgeable about the subject than the audio tapes the museum would lend out. Afterwards, Amalia just wandered aimlessly around the museum, looking from exhibit to exhibit.

She was in an exhibit about Ancient Unova when she spotted that weird guy, N. He was staring upwards, wide-eyed and open-mouthed at a replica of Unova's legendary dragons. His hat was absent, and his ridiculous green hair stuck up on the top of his head. She decided to leave before he noticed her.

N looked right at her and smiled. Goddammit.

"Um, hey," she said, trying to come across as unfriendly as possible so he would leave her alone.

"Amalia." He was still smiling. "It's nice seeing you again." His eyes traveled down to her bag, where she kept her Pokémon. "Your pokémon sound happy, too."

"Well, uh, I was just leaving, so I guess I'll see you some other time. Bye!" she said, heading towards the exit at top powerwalking speed.

He caught up with her. "No, it's okay. I was just thinking about leaving, myself."

She walked faster. "I dunno," she said, "you sure you don't wanna keep looking at that exhibit? You seemed pretty into it." She hoped he would get the hint.

He pondered that for a couple of seconds, and Amalia's heart sank, realizing that no, N did not understand her implicit request for him to just _go away_. "Well…" he began, "I do have to admit that I am fascinated by ancient Pokémon, and what their lifestyles were like. I mean, it's not like I can just ask them, since they aren't exactly around anymore for me to talk to—"

Amalia tuned him out. What was the best course of action? Maybe she could say she needed to pee and then escape through the restroom window, like some sort of badass. But they were on the third story, and Amalia wasn't good at any of that parkour stuff. Besides, what if the restrooms didn't have windows? God, what if N came in after her? She shuddered at the thought.

As it was, she just let him follow her out the building.

"—Anthea told me that that's not quite how it works, though, but I still think that—"

Was he still talking? What was he even on about? Amalia had lost track of the conversation the instant he'd opened his mouth, and was now past the point of rejoining the conversation. She checked the time on her phone, admiring the cute shuckle family she'd set as her lock screen. It was almost two. She didn't have any plans for the rest of the day, meaning there was a very real chance that N would just follow her around indefinitely as she meandered through the town.

"I don't know about you," she began. N stopped talking and focused his attention on her, "but I'm hungry."

N just looked at her. Oh god, was he homeless? Was he gonna expect her to buy him food or something? Maybe all she needed to do was give him a couple dollars or something, and then he'd leave her alone. God no, if she did that he'd probably end up being some psycho murderer or something and it would just piss him off and then she'd be dead for sure. This was it, she had fucked up for the last time and now she was going to die at only eighteen years old and—

"You should probably eat, then" he said.

"Oh. Right. I should probably find something then, haha," she said.

N followed her to a nearby deli, and they sat at one of the patio tables. It was a clear, beautiful day, and Amalia looked at a group of people crossing the street, specifically a man who appeared to be wearing a Christmas sweater, despite it being late june. She looked back at N. Why had he followed her here if he wasn't going to buy any food? He'd bought a soda from a nearby vending machine, but still, why couldn't he just go somewhere else?

"I always bring my own lunch, cos a lot of restaurants don't really have things I can eat," he explained.

"Allergies?"

"No, no, nothing like that," he said, and reached into his bag to fish out his own, pre-made lunch. It was… some kind of vegetable sandwich. It looked very healthy. He was going to eat that with a coca-cola? Didn't that defeat the point?

"So you're like, a vegan or something, then?" He was into all that pokémon rights stuff, so if the shoe fits...

"No, not really. Pokémon eat each other in the wild all the time, so I don't see why I'd have a problem with that. It's more to do with the way the meat industry is run, so I generally just avoid meat unless I know where it comes from."

"Oh, that makes sense," she said, taking a bite of her roast beef.

N smiled and popped the tab on his coke. "I was never allowed to have sugary drinks, so being able to get this on my own is probably one of my favorite parts of being an adult."

At this, Amalia had to laugh. "I would think that being able to drive anywhere you want would be the best part. You could, like, drive to the store and buy several two-liter bottles of coca-cola if you really wanted to."

His eyes widened. "They sell them that big? That's amazing!... I can't drive, though, I don't know how."

"That's no big deal, some people learn later than others." Amalia shrugged. "I mean, I didn't get my license until I was like, seventeen, I think? So I've only been driving for a little over a year. How old are you, by the way?"

He furrowed his brow, like he was thinking about something. "I think I'm around nineteen."

"You think?"

"I don't know exactly when I was born," he said matter-of-factly. "No one's ever told me anything about it, and it's not something that I asked about, cos it never really bothered me," he added, after apparently seeing Amalia's concerned expression.

"That's kind of sad," she said.

He looked confused. "How? I'm pretty sure that's normal."

Amalia's jaw dropped. It felt like forever for her to regain her composure and stammer out "i-it just _is_ sad, okay?"

She got up from the table. "Listen, I uh, I need to get going. It was nice seeing you," she said.

N remained seated. "Alright. See you later, Amalia."

She turned and gave him a little wave. "Yeah, uh, you too N," she said as she hurried away.

She hadn't gone into that interaction expecting to feel bad. There were many other cultures around the world that didn't attach any sort of significance to birthdays, Amalia knew that. But to hear that from someone she knew, someone who was ostensibly born here, in a country that did keep record of stuff like that... it was a little jarring. Yeah, he was still kind of creepy, but in a less malicious sort of way.

Young people loved Nacrene for its music scene and quaint atmosphere. There were coffee shops at nearly every corner, and every night, a different indie band would play at the Café Warehouse, the city's most popular coffee shop-slash-bar. It went without saying that many of these bands were terrible, but that didn't stop anyone from having a good time.

Tonight was a particular ensemble that had an accordionist and a front man with a wailing voice. What did they call it? Polka-pop? It was the kind of thing that could've been good if it were done by another band. Amalia had never imagined such a cacophony could exist; the dissonance between the guitars and the off-rhythm drumline and the vocalist's horrible, whiny voice crescendoing into a horrible mess that put Amalia on edge.

She'd been dragged here by Adrien Miller, a decent-looking guy she had met while training at Nacrene's gym, and who had wandered off immediately upon arriving at the venue, nowhere to be found.

Maybe indie music just really wasn't her thing. She got up and began to shove through crowds of second-hand clothes and ironic t-shirts, looking for Adrien but mostly just trying to find her way to the exit. It smelled like sweat, weed, and hand-me-down clothes, which was funny because this was a pretty affluent area of town.

"Enjoying the show?" A man whom Amalia didn't know slid his arm around her waist.

Amalia grimaced. "Uh, no," she said awkwardly, removing herself from his arm.

He grabbed her by the arm. "It'd be a lot more fun if you had something to drink," he said, eyeing the bright orange paper wristband indicating she was under 21.

Seeing Amalia's hesitation, he insisted "come on, let me buy you a drink, it won't hurt."

"I'm pretty sure all the alcohol in the world couldn't make this band sound good," she said, curling her lip. She had nothing against drinking, she did it too sometimes. But she was surrounded by people she didn't know and she didn't like the way this guy was touching her.

He gave her arm a little squeeze. "Really, I insist. What do you want?"

"I want you to let go of me."

"Come on, don't be like that."

"Be like what?" she snapped, "Let's try this: let go of me or I'll rip your fucking dick off. Is that better?" She pulled her arm out of his grasp.

"What the hell? I was just trying to help you have a good time, you don't need to be a stupid bitch about it," he said, but Amalia was already out the door and in the cool night air, still shaking from the adrenaline.

"Wow, shit, that was intense." Somebody had followed her outside. She tensed and turned around. It was a tall, thin man with curly, brown hair that fell around his face like a halo in a renaissance painting.

"That guy was being a dick even before he started harassing you, sooo annoying, I'm so glad you like, put him in his place. Like I mean, I am glad it provided some sort of entertainment tonight, because that band was terrible.

"My name's Burgh, by the way. Well, that's not my real name, it's just an abbreviation of my last name, but that's what everyone calls me."

He offered his hand for a handshake, which she took. "I'm Amalia."

"Anyway, I had heard about them from a friend, right? And I trust this guy, he's got good taste most of the time, and he told me this band was interesting. So I thought I should come check it out, you know, to see what all the fuss was about. Like, I couldn't even enjoy this if I was hammered." he said. "It's not like I drove from Castelia just to see them, I mean I had other things to do, but I still feel like I wasted my evening."

Wow, Burgh really liked to talk about himself. "You're from Castelia?"

"Yeah, I mean, I _am_ the gym leader."

"Oh yeah," Amalia said, finally putting two and two together, "I knew that." She was so dumb, of course the Burgh she was speaking to and the Burgh of Castelia City Gym were one and the same. She had even seen pictures of him before. "God, I'm sorry. I guess it just… didn't register with me, you know?"

It was hard not to know about him. He had only become the Gym Leader a little over a year ago, following a huge scandal that ended with the previous Gym Leader being arrested for money laundering and various white-collar crimes. Compared to his predecessor, Burgh was an absolute angel; that didn't mean the city officials and local tabloids weren't skeptical.

Burgh's face fell. "Yeah, I totally feel you. I mean, it's not like Castelia's Gym Leader gets a good rep anyway."

"That's not your fault," said Amalia.

"Of course it isn't! I mean, I haven't even done anything wrong! They don't even know me! Most of the city is pretty cool with me, actually, it's like there's this one group that just sits there, waiting for me to slip up."

She shrugged. "Some people will find fault in anything, I guess."

"Right?! I mean, at first they were mad because I was still in art school, which obviously meant that I wouldn't be able to focus on my duties." He rolled his eyes.

"But get this," he said, flicking his wrist, "Now, since I'm an art school graduate, I'll apparently never be a productive member of society! Like, Excuse Me? Sorry I don't have a shitty, boring job like you guys, okay."

Amalia laughed. Burgh was gesticulating wildly, apparently having a unique hand gesture for any occasion. It made the whole thing seem way more dramatic than it actually was, but she found herself being swept up by it, fully engaged in the story Burgh was telling about his detractors.

"And if it's not that, it's my sexuality, and if it's not my sexuality, it's the fact I specialize in bug-types. Seriously, there's a group of old ladies dedicated just to bitching about it. They literally just sit in the mall all morning just to complain about shit like that. Like," Burgh took a deep breath and continued in a tone meant to imitate these people, "'Bug-types are sooo uncivilized, he's practically bringing vermin into our city' and blah blah blah whatever. Honestly, I guarantee that they're convinced the pokémon gym I run is like, Stage 1 of the homosexual agenda, or some giant Jewish conspiracy. Or both."

Burgh pulled an ugly face and Amalia laughed harder.

"Actually, you know what?" Burgh continued, "I think I'm gonna have to make a grand appearance at the pride parade this year. That'll really make those decrepit old bitches shake in their boots."

"You should have a whole fuckin' like, battalion of guys dressed like scolipedes on a float, with Gasolina just blaring from the speakers. They probably hate immigrants too, so that'll really scare 'em."

Burgh took a swig of his beer and laughed. "That is, that's the best idea I have ever heard in my life."

"And a guy with a shuckle codpiece."

"Holy fuck, you are goddamned brilliant." He laughed.

The Pinwheel Forest nature trail was very peaceful, and Amalia enjoyed watching Hecate run about trying to explore every tuft of grass. Despite the morning being pleasant and cool, not many people were on the trail today, so she was free to walk at a leisurely pace, enjoying the flecks of warm sunlight that filtered through the trees. Hecate chirped happily as she skittered towards a thicket, hoping to find a playmate or a meal. She made an excited noise, and disappeared into the bushes.

"Hecate wait!" Amalia shouted, jogging over to where she was. "I told you to stay within my line of sight—!"

What Amalia saw when she stepped through the thicket was unexpected, to say the least. A small, green pokémon, a Petilil, was wrapping its vines around her spinarak, a couple of which had already been bitten off.

"Hey!" said Amalia, surprising the petilil, which looked up at her and chirped cutely. This gave Hecate an opening to escape, and surround the petilil with its webbing.

Elodea, which is what Amalia chose to call it, was an extremely confrontational pokémon, and once Amalia let her out of her pokéball to heal her up she refused to get back inside, instead leading Amalia on a wild goose chase through the forest, going after anything that so much as made a sound. Elodea finally came to a halt near a small clearing. As Amalia approached, she noticed the sound of hushed speaking and the murmur of a small group.

"…the pretense…liberation…our key to power…"

She remained in the shadow of the thicket, pulling her pokémon close to her as she squatted closer to the ground. The group was clearly visible, and she could see the backs of several people, all wearing the same white tunic and grey hood, standing in a half circle formation. At the center of them, slightly elevated, stood an old man dressed like the pope. He had a long white moustache that framed his mouth and chin, and wore an intricately patterned robe adorned with a shield-type crest, and a very tall hat.

The old man spoke up, and Amalia could hear him clearly this time. "Remember, the Heir will awaken Unova's legendary dragon, and with that, our group, the secrets we have kept for thousands of years, shall prosper!" He held his hands up in the air, as if bathing in God's light. Was this some sort of cult? It was just her luck, stumbling upon some kind of arcane cult meeting when she was just trying to enjoy her day.

"However," the old man continued, "this does not mean that we should not keep up with our current efforts, after all, even with our King's help, Pokémon liberation is not something that will just happen overnight."

Hadn't she heard that before?

"It is our job as the Hero's chosen people to lead this nation to the light. With our help, our King shall lead the entire nation in its ascension to a higher plane! This is our enlightenment, our eternal life! These are the teachings of Team Plasma!"

Amalia's eyes widened. Team Plasma? She had heard that name before. Everyone had. Everyone knew of Team Plasma, but nobody knew much of them beyond that they existed. They were a mysterious force that appeared sporadically throughout the region's history, always stirring up trouble. They had been most active during the eighties, but since then they'd mostly faded to the background, only heard of through high school history courses and late-night wikipedia binges. They were, essentially, an ancient, mysterious cult whose leaders claimed descent from Unova's legendary heroes. That was pretty much all that anybody knew of them.

"…and spread our message to the world!" the old man finished his speech.

"Yes, Sage Gorm," the followers said in unison, before dispersing in different directions.

Amalia waited, her heart beating so fast she was sure she would be caught, until all of them had meandered out of sight. She returned Hecate and Elodea to their pokéballs and ran. She didn't stop until she was well inside Castelia City, and the sun was sinking towards the horizon.

* * *

im angry because this story is supposed to take place in 2011 but i really wanted to make a macklemore reference :( and thrift shop didn't really become a hit until 2012 :( UGH

On a side note, this is probably the chapter that retains the most content from my original draft. you can tell i wrote the bar scene in 2012 bc back then hipsters were the big thing to make fun of so that whole passage was like, a dig at that. like, i literally haven't heard the word 'hipster' in sooooo long haha.

also, the story is picking up! a little

Footnotes:  
1) I'm actually not that fond of IRL spiders, I'll tolerate them bc they eat all the other bugs, and I think they're cute sometimes but if they fuckin crawl on my arm when I'm not looking I will probably scream. And then feel really guilty about it.  
2) I looked up the temperature by month for new york city, and it said that the average for july was 76 degrees? What kind of... what kind of unfair bullshit? Is that considered hot? I would literally give my firstborn child for it to be 76 degrees right now...  
2) I don't think N would be strictly vegan, bc like I said, pokemon eat each other all the time, it's normal. But he'd probably distinguish between meat that's been raised in a factory farm and fed a unhealthy corn-based diet and meat that's been raised in a more natural way. I do not think he'd wear leather shoes, though, or any sort of animal skin, but wool products are probably fine.  
3) What was N talking about while Amalia wasn't listening? it is mystery.  
4) Burgh's real name is Arthur Cronenberg. Arthur bc it's a derivative of his japanese name, and Cronenbrg bc David Cronenberg is my lord and savior, the man who codified body horror into flesh (haha GEDDIT).  
5) vampolka + vampira


	4. Deep, Deep Trouble

Ok, like, listen. I dont have a beta reader or anything like that, so all proofreading is done by yours truly. The bad thing about that is by the time I'm done with a chapter, I've already read through it like 15-20 separate times. So by the time I get to proofreading, I'm pretty tired of reading the same thing over and over again, so I just kinda skim it. Most of my mistakes are like, places where i deleted text and forgot to rewrite the sentence and stuff. Please bear with me ok, if u see anything that looks wrong, please let me know. Thank you.

content warning: ableism.

* * *

Bianca waved her over from the patio of a restaurant, where she was sitting with a blue-haired man and a young girl who Amalia recognized as Iris, Opelucid's junior gym leader. "We were just talking about you," she said as Amalia approached.

"Yeah, about how we all hate you," said the blue-haired guy.

"Oh god, please tell me you remember who I am," he continued after Amalia didn't answer. "It's me, Cress, from Striaton? God, this is so awkward."

"I've never seen you without your uniform, sorry!"

"No one ever recognizes him!" Iris chimed in, slapping him lightly on the shoulder. "It's because you're just so unremarkable, Cress!"

"Thanks."

"I was telling them about your crazy stalker," said Bianca, "He's always, like, showing up where Amalia is and trying to talk to her."

"He's not always showing up…"

"That's because he stays hidden. That's what crazy stalkers do," said Cress.

Amalia wasn't sure whether N could even be called a stalker. He was just… some weird guy who happened to be in the same place as her sometimes, and would sometimes follow her around. All of their meetings so far had been coincidental, and overall N seemed to be more socially inept than outright malicious.

"Amalia, I swear, wherever you are, he's probably somewhere close by," said Bianca. "For example: just the other day when we were at the Castelia Gym, remember?"

"Bianca, that's been nearly every day this week."

"ANYWAY, as I was saying, we were at the gym, but you decided to leave early, because you weren't feeling well, remember?" She waited until Amalia nodded. "Well, a little while after you left, he approached me and was like 'hey, have you seen Amalia today?'"

"And you told him you hadn't seen me, right?"

"No, I gave him your full name, date of birth, and social security number."

"That sounds like a coincidence, if anything," said Iris, "he doesn't sound that bad."

Cress took a deep breath. "Iris, I can forgive you because you're young, and you're my friend and I love you deeply, but please trust those of us who've actually met him when we say he's got a few screws loose."

"You've met him?" Amalia asked.

"I'm a gym leader, he challenged our gym," he said.

"Oh yeah! Sorry, I forgot."

"Granted, I'm not the one who battled him, that was my brother, Chili. But the whole battle he just kept talking, like giving a sermon almost, about how pokémon were unhappy inside of pokéballs, and that pokémon battles were like, evil and wrong and stuff."

Iris furrowed her brow. "If you don't like pokémon battles, then just don't… do them? No one's making him participate? A lot of pokémon enjoy battling, so does he think we should just make those pokémon not do something they enjoy?"

Bianca shrugged her shoulders.

"It just doesn't make any sense!" Iris exclaimed.

Amalia didn't really think that N was crazy, or a stalker, or anything like that. He was a little weird, sure. But there was something about him, something in his demeanor, his mannerisms, in the fact that he thought it was perfectly normal to not know his own birthday, that suggested something much deeper, something in his life he had no control over. It was unfair to fault him for that.

The way he didn't know what facial expressions to make, when eye contact was appropriate, when other people wanted to be left alone… It was all probably caused by a variety of factors, both neurological and social. He wasn't allowed sugary foods as a kid, didn't know coke came in two liter bottles, didn't know how to drive, couldn't use a computer properly even though he loved math and technology. These were pretty normal or understandable things when taken individually, but grouped with everything else, with not knowing his own birthday… it made Amalia think that he'd maybe had a messed up childhood, sequestered away from everyone else in some sort of rigidly-controlled environment. If that was the case, then N probably didn't even know his childhood was fucked up. He would have nothing to compare it to.

Maybe Amalia needed to be nicer to him.

She had been waiting at a crosswalk when she ran into N again. He was facing away from her, talking to a couple of people she didn't recognize. She was pleasantly surprised that he talked to people other than herself. Regardless, it was none of her business who he talked to or what he did. She hoped he wouldn't notice her, though, because unlike the other times, she actually had something she needed to do, and she didn't really have time to entertain him.

The people he was talking to dismissed themselves and left in opposite directions, turning the corner at the end of the block and disappearing out of sight. He turned around, probably intending to do something similar, but stopped for some reason that Amalia hoped had nothing to do with her.

"A-Amalia!" he stammered.

She rubbed at her temple. She really should have expected this. A slight blush spread across his face.

"Hey N," she said, pausing and forcing a smile, "Listen, I'm actually kind of busy right now, so I don't really have time to hang out today."

She wasn't lying this time. She was supposed to meet Burgh for lunch. "I'm sorry," she added, not really that sorry.

"That's okay, I'm actually kind of busy myself," he replied.

Amalia raised an eyebrow. "Wow. Really?"

"I, uh, have some unfinished business in Nacrene… Can I –ah– may I walk with you for a while?"

She shrugged. "Sure."

The red hand across the street changed into the walk symbol, and they crossed.

"Listen, Amalia," he began, "I aim to create a future in which both pokémon and people have become perfect."

"Perfect?" Amalia furrowed her brow, she was at a complete loss for words, "I'm pretty sure that's… ugh, I, it's just… that's kinda unreasonable, isn't it?"

He gave her A Look that said it all: she was a stupid, lesser being who just Didn't Get It. "How faithless you are, I expected more from you. After all, if I can be perfect, isn't it reasonable to expect the same from others, as well?"

No, she wanted to say, it wasn't reasonable at all. It was unreasonable for him to think he was perfect in the first place. N may have seemed intelligent, may have scored consistently higher than the norm on IQ tests, but all of that amounted to nothing if he couldn't properly understand the world for what it was; a big, jumbled mess of imperfect beings. He… didn't understand much of anything, Amalia realized.

"Never mind," he said, shaking his head. "It's to be expected. People are prone to disagree when their own best interests are at stake." He paused. "So I'll need power… power enough to make anyone agree with me." He was talking more to himself than he was to Amalia. "The power I need… the holy dragon, Reshiram…"

Amalia raised her eyebrow. She wanted to think he was joking, but from what she had gathered, N didn't do jokes.

He continued. "That way, I can change the world for the better, and then…!" he looked at her briefly before looking away. "…you and I will be friends."

Ok, nevermind. That was kind of a creepy thing to say. Amalia assumed he already considered them friends, but what did she know? Evidently nothing, judging by the condescending way N was speaking to her.

"Uh, well…" she frowned, looking for a way out. "Oh! Look!" she said, pointing across the street while her voice raised to an incredibly fake-sounding pitch, "What do you know? There's the friend I promised to meet!"

His eyes followed her finger to where it was pointing. There was no one there.

"I guess I'll be seeing you around!" she said with a fake smile, before running across the street illegally and narrowly avoiding being hit by a BMW. She knew that this made her kind of a mean, terrible person, but she wasn't in the mood to be spoken down to like some kind of child, ignorant of her own best interest. She didn't look back.

It was around lunch time, so the café was packed with businessmen and college students alike, most of them taking advantage of the café's free Wi-Fi.

"Took you long enough," said Burgh as she sat down across from him at the table, "I feel like I've been sitting here forever."

She almost groaned, thinking that she was dealing with another Cheren, before she realized that he was actually joking. "No you haven't," she said.

He laughed. "Yeah, you're right; I've only been here for, like, seven minutes."

For a gym leader, Burgh was a pretty chill guy. That was probably why Amalia liked him so much. While she, Cheren and Bianca shared a humor that was primarily based upon sarcasm and admittedly shitty inside jokes, Burgh's sense of humor relied on gossip and lengthy rants. It appealed to Amalia on a completely different level. For a guy with a relatively laid-back life, Burgh certainly had a lot to bitch about.

"Ugh, you know what really bugs me, Amalia? I absolutely HATE how all these self-proclaimed artists are all churning out the same stock images and calling it 'unique' and 'new,' you know? Like, I mean, really? Everywhere I turn there's some other piece of shitty, fake-deep piece of fucking propaganda about smart phones sucking out your soul, or about how young people are ruining the economy. So what? They're so full of themselves, too, Amalia! It is seriously the most embarrassing thing to watch these shitty old people brag about how their poorly-rendered photoshop is so 'deep' and 'meaningful' and how it 'reveals the sins of millennials.' Seriously? That shit may have been okay in the fucking bingo hall, but this is real fucking life, thank you very much."

"You're an artist, aren't you, Burgh?"

"Well, yeah, but the difference is I'm not full of shit," he explained.

She looked at him quizzically.

He looked like he was about to respond, but was interrupted by Madonna singing about keeping her baby. "Hang on, Amalia, that's me."

He answered his phone with a smile. "Hey, ah, Lenora, what's up?"

Amalia had no idea what it was that Lenora had said, but Burgh's amiable face immediately changed into an expression of shock and disgust. "Excuse me, what?" he said, "They stole it… how? How could they even… Okay, well, I don't know what you want me to do about it…"

He rubbed at his forehead, still shocked at what he was hearing. "I'll be on the lookout, then," he said before hanging up.

He turned towards Amalia with a roll of his eyes and a loud huff. "Amalia, you wouldn't believe what just happened."

"What?"

"Some fucking idiots just up and broke into the museum in Nacrene – the nerve! – and get this, they stole one of the exhibits. Isn't that crazy?"

Amalia's eyes widened. While she knew she could put most of those details up to exaggeration on Burgh's part, that didn't change the fact that somebody managed to steal something from the museum – and get away with it, too!

Burgh leaned in close and lowered his voice. "Hey, we should totally check it out."

"Is that even a thing that's okay?"

"Of course it is," he said as he stood up and motioned for Amalia to do the same.

She followed him out of the café. "Is it really?"

"Uh, yeah? I'm a gym leader, and Lenora's a gym leader, so it should be fine."

That wasn't reassuring, but Amalia followed him to his car anyway.

"It should be unlocked," he said, indicating a light blue van. Amalia raised an eyebrow.

"It was a good deal," he explained in response to her incredulous expression, and they both got into the car.

When they drove up to the Museum forty-five minutes later, Amalia mentally froze. The Nacrene Museum was in chaos. Several police cars were parked haphazardly in the Museum's front lot, trying to ward away the small crowd of onlookers that had amassed. The local television station had also shown up, and was filming a live report at that very moment.

At the center, speaking to a representative of the local news station, stood Lenora's husband Hawes.

The crowd parted slightly for Burgh as he shoved his way towards them. "What's going on? Wait," he paused and looked around, turning towards where Amalia was standing by the car. "Amalia, what are you doing, come on!"

She grudgingly left her spot by the car and made her way through the crowd to Burgh, who was being briefed on the situation.

"…Then the smoke cleared, and both them and the Dragonite skull were gone, without a trace!" said Hawes. "Nobody knows where they went, they could be anywhere! The police say that it's highly unlikely that the thieves have left Nacrene, but I'm not so sure. Just the fact that the skull was stolen in the first place makes me think that anything could be possible when it comes to these people."

"But why would they steal it? What's so important about an old skull, anyway?" Amalia asked.

"Probably just to get attention, Amalia," said Burgh.

"I'm not so sure," Hawes said thoughtfully, "they said they were taking it in the name of their cause, but that still doesn't say anything about why they were specifically after the skull." Hawes sighed. "The police so far haven't been much help, at this rate we'll probably never see that skull again." He rested his head in his hands. "Lenora loved that skull, too."

"Speaking of Lenora," Burgh said, looking around. "Where is she?"

"She got frustrated waiting for the police to do anything, so she went off to look for it herself."

"That sounds like something she'd do, all right."

Amalia still couldn't quite wrap her mind around the fact that the skull had been stolen so easily. She had seen it when she had been in Nacrene two weeks prior, and it had been huge. It wasn't possible to simply shove it in a bag and walk off, no; anyone carrying that skull was bound to be noticed. Yet apparently, nobody had seen the skull anywhere since. It, along with the thieves, had just disappeared in the smokescreen, just vanished without a trace. It was like something straight out of Scooby-Doo, except far less funny and without a talking Houndoom.

Hawes turned around as he was questioned by yet another reporter, leaving Burgh and Amalia to themselves. He pulled her aside, away from the group of people. "Hey Amalia," he said quietly. "We should go look for it."

Amalia opened her mouth to speak, but was quickly cut off by Burgh.

"I mean, the police apparently aren't doing anything… Besides I think they're hiding something. They're trying to restrict the search to inside the city. Don't you think that's a little fishy?"

She wondered if it would really be so easy, if the two of them could just waltz in, solve the mystery, unmask the criminal, and be done with it. She wondered how she even got herself entangled in these problems in the first place.

"You see, if I were a thief, I would probably hide in the woods," said Burgh, standing at the first fork in Pinwheel Forest's nature trail.

"Well, yeah, we already figured that out. That's why we're here, in the woods."

Burgh ignored her remark. "But if I had stolen the dragon skull, which way would I go?" he wondered aloud, absentmindedly rubbing his chin.

If Amalia's life right now was Scooby-Doo, then Burgh was Fred. He had the scarf and everything.

Amalia sighed. "If they really are in the forest, do you really think we'd be able to find them so easily? They probably aren't even on the pathways."

"That's okay, I know this forest like the back of my hand. This will be a breeze." He paused in thought. "I've got it! We can split up. I'll to this way," he said, indicating the path that led straight out of the woods. "And you can go that way." He pointed down the long winding path.

Amalia had been wrong, Burgh was definitely Shaggy. "No! No way! You are not leaving me to go the long way. You said it yourself; you know this forest like the back of your hand. I don't. Either you're going that way, or we both are."

She didn't think she was being unreasonable. After all, she had witnessed that weird cult ritual in this very forest less than a month ago, and who was to say they weren't still lurking around? It's not like Amalia was scared, it was just common sense to use the buddy system in situations like this, really.

It started to get dark, and Amalia hoped that they could get this over with sooner rather than later. Maybe if they fumbled around enough, the thief would show up and lead them on a wild goose chase, only to be revealed that he was the sheriff, who was posing as the museum's janitor to steal the skull because it held a treasure map that led to a billion dollars. Then Amalia could go home.

Something rustled in the trees. "Oh my God!" Burgh screamed.

"Shut up," Amalia hissed, "it's just a family of panpours!"

By now they had ventured off the path, with Burgh's leavanny leading the way, and Burgh himself standing behind Amalia, probably preparing to use her as a human shield if need be.

"Can you please stop pushing me," she whispered.

"What?"

"Can you please stop pushing me," she said.

"What was that?" Amalia stopped. That wasn't Burgh's voice…

"Did you hear that, Amalia?" Burgh whispered.

"Yes, shut up!" she hissed back.

"Who's there?" the mystery voice continued, and Amalia could see that someone was shining a flashlight in different directions. It was only a matter of time until—

"What the hell are you doing here?" the man said, grabbing a pokéball from his belt, "I won't let you interfere with Team Plasma's plans!"

The man sent out a watchog. Amalia looked to Burgh, since he already had a pokémon out, but he didn't seem to be paying attention.

"Ugh! Fine!" she said, sending out Dio, her whirlipede.

"You're never going to catch up to that dragon skull," the Team Plasma grunt said after Amalia defeated him, "there are more of my comrades deeper in the forest, and with every second you waste that skull's getting further away."

"Hold on," said Burgh, "you said you were a part of Team Plasma, right?"

The man nodded.

"Why choose to become active again now, of all times? What do you stand to gain?"

"Burgh, we don't have time for this," Amalia urged, tugging his sleeve, "we've gotta get that skull."

The Plasma grunt hadn't lied when he said he had companions scattered through the forest, but between herself and Burgh, none of them were too challenging. Each one of them said the same thing: that they would never catch up to the dragon skull, blah blah blah, it was probably halfway across the region by now.

They caught up to it within the hour.

"What am I going to do?" the Plasma courier wailed after Amalia defeated him, "without that skull, we can't resurrect the ancient dragon!"

"That's too bad," said Amalia.

"Our plans are RUINED now, thanks to you! We would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you STUPID kids and your STUPID pokémon," he continued.

"That's tough. I really feel for you."

"I'm deeply sorry for my subordinate's behavior," said a man dressed like the pope, who approached them from the shadows, "he can get a little emotional sometimes."

He looked vaguely familiar, and Amalia realized that he was one of the people she had seen in the forest a week ago. Come to think of it, they'd mentioned something about Team Plasma then, as well.

"Sage Gorm!" the Plasma Grunt shouted, "I'm sorry I… I lost the dragon skull, after we went through all that trouble."

"It's fine," said Gorm, waving his hand dismissively, "it wasn't that important."

"Are you guys gonna tell us why the fuck Team Plasma is suddenly active again?" Burgh sneered, "I thought the government shut down your little cult decades ago."

"Oh? Is that what they taught you in elementary school?" Gorm taunted, "I may be mistaken, but I'm under no obligation to answer to you, gym leader."

Burgh grit his teeth. "You will when the police arrive."

"If," Gorm corrected, "If the police arrive."

"Now if you'll excuse us, we really must be going," said Gorm as his associate deployed a smoke grenade, "as much as I'd love to, we simply don't have time to wait around for the authorities to get here."

"Buh-bye!" he said, fully hidden by the smoke.

The smoke cleared, and Team Plasma was no where to be seen. "I'm going after them," said Amalia.

"We got the skull, Amalia, it's fine."

"Didn't you hear what they said? They want to resurrect some sort of ancient dragon!"

"There's nothing we can do right now," he responded, "Let's just get this back to Lenora and go home. We can talk about it later." He sounded very tired.

They walked back to Nacrene in silence, both of them deep in thought. What did Team Plasma need an ancient dragon for, anyway? From what Amalia knew, they were just some sort of bizarre cult that was just kind of _there_. For a long time, many people thought they were just a myth, like the illuminati, always present but never visible.

These days, it was generally assumed that Team Plasma no longer existed. Following a sequence of events that included an attempted bombing, the resulting arrests of several high-ranking Plasma members, and the subsequent years of government surveillance of the remaining members; Team Plasma went mysteriously silent. That was around a year before Amalia was born, in the early nineties.

"Oh my god," Burgh whined as they drove out the parking lot. The streets were empty, and the clock on the dashboard was flashing 1:30. "This isn't the kind of person I wanna be!"

"What?"

He turned sharply into a Denny's parking lot, tires screeching. "What are you doing?" Amalia said, holding the door handle for dear life.

"Don't fucking judge me, Amalia."

* * *

TLDR: Amalia starts to show real, relatable human emotions.  
This chapter is where I stopped originally. Right in the middle of Amalia being like "why is my life scooby doo." From now on, I probably will not update as quickly, but I have pretty much the whole plot outlined and planned out, so rest assured that more chapters WILL come lol. Just probably like, a week at a time? It depends on how my irl work goes, as I'm trying to find a new job as my current one is terrible. (please wish on me a new, well-paying job. i hate the mall)

Footnotes: 1) Iris, Cress, and Bianca. Bianca seems like she could be friends with anybody, even if they were a couple years younger than her and still in middle school. Iris looks around 12-14 and Cress (and his brothers by extension) look around 15-16, and given that both Iris and Cress are league employees, they've probably interacted quite a bit.  
2) N is kinda a condescending asshole in a lot of his speeches and stuff. I mean, he thinks he's perfect. I do think he probably rehearses a lot of the lines he says in the games (black and white, not the sequels), because it's just way too put-together for everyday use, even for someone like N.  
3) Since Plasma is after Reshiram, this is evidently based on White version, though I'm mostly trying to integrate elements from both of the games.  
4) Burgh's tirade about anti-millenial art was originally gonna be a dig at interior semiotics. (WARNING, VIDEO IS NSFW and KINDA GROSS)  
5) I think you've probably noticed by now that I've changed the order of certain events in the games. I can assure you, that's literally all Burgh's fault. As it plays out in the games, I couldn't really see Amalia and Burgh becoming such good friends so quickly, so I created a new event (the bar) where they could meet and become friends. However, doing that would mean that meeting burgh during the Nacrene Museum heist would be redundant, so I decided to split that into two separate events. I like how it turned out. Burgh is my fave. I love him.  
6)Burgh is sort of based off of someone I knew IRL. He vehemently hated Lady Gaga for doing "what Madonna had already done." Not gonna lie, doing research for Burgh's character is the only reason I ever started listening to Madonna in the first place, four years ago. Burgh's ringtone: papa don't preach. the BEST madonna song: like a prayer.  
7) I have been stalked before. It's fucking horrible. 0/10 don't recommend. If someone says that they love you, and you haven't known them for very long, then RUN!

why wont this godforsaken website let me post links? its rly dumb? I JUST WANT TO LINK TO YOUTUBE

anyways if you want the full footnote experience, where there are hyperlinks to relevant things, then please view on archive of our own. it makes more sense!


	5. The Passenger

thank you everyone who has been reading and reviewing! it is always appreciated. this chapter is very long, but a lot of important things happen. We get to meet a new character and find out some things about Amalia's family.

content warning: drug use, implications of underage drinking, past cigarette use.

this chapter has been brought to you by the letters B-A-N-A-N-A-S and gwen stefani's entire discography

* * *

Amalia envied Cheren. He was just so driven. He knew what he wanted and knew how he was going to get it; Amalia had none of that. Where was the ambition she had four months ago, before everything happened? The reason she had left Accumula with Cheren and Bianca and started challenging pokémon gyms and winning badges was because she thought it would get her mind off things. Being back in Castelia City… it was hard not to think about certain things, and she knew sooner or later she'd need to face reality and visit her father. She just wasn't sure she could handle going alone.

She washed her face in the motel room sink and looked in the mirror. The harsh light of the bathroom made her skin look sallow and waxy, so she decided to apply her makeup in the other room. She'd probably go to the gym today, maybe even schedule her badge match…

BZZZ BZZZ BZZZ. Her phone was vibrating. She answered a bit more forcefully than she needed to. "What?!"

It was Burgh. He sounded stressed. "Amalia, something's happened."

She found them in a public area near the harbor. Bianca was sitting on a bench, crying, with Iris trying to comfort her.

"Bianca? What happened? Are you okay?"

"Someone stole her pokémon," Iris informed her.

"He just p-pushed me down and grabbed h-her pokéball out of my hand…"

"I tried to follow him, but he ran really fast, and this city's really crowded… so I lost sight of him…"

"It's not your fault, Iris…" said Bianca, in between sobs, "It's all because I'm _weak_ and _stupid!_ "

"Hey, there's nothing you could've done, he ambushed and physically overpowered you… there's no way you could've been prepared for that…" assured Amalia.

"What if I never see my munna again? I promised I would keep her safe…" So someone had stolen Munro, the little pink pokémon that Bianca had saved from that pair of idiots a while back.

"I would say we should file a police report," said Burgh, "but with the way things have been going, I feel like that wouldn't do any good."

"Bianca, do you think the thief could have anything to do with those guys who were after munna in the first place?" Amalia suggested.

"I dunno… he said he was with Team Plasma…" she sniffled. Burgh and Amalia glanced at one another.

"Oh Fuck," said a man in a distinctive white-and-grey hoodie, holding an ice-cream cone, "shit."

"That's him!" Bianca shrieked, pointing at the man, "That's the guy who took her!"

The man dropped his ice-cream cone and took off in the opposite direction. Burgh and Amalia traded a quick glance and bolted after him.

Burgh could run surprisingly fast for someone who only wore designer shoes. The man rounded the corner to F. Valentine St., pushing a young mother and her child out of the way. "He's going towards the gym?" Burgh expressed in disbelief.

Instead, the man ran past the gym, rounding another corner and vanishing through the fire exit of the Smythe Building.

Burgh furrowed his brow. "That's the corporate office for B&C Group. Well, guess we gotta use the front door…"

The B&C Group was a large-scale manufacturer of household items, pokéballs, and military tactical gear. Amalia had a toaster and an oven mitt that had been made by one of their subsidiary companies. Pretty good-quality stuff.

"We need to speak to whoever's in charge," demanded Burgh.

"Ummmm," said the receptionist, absent-mindedly twirling her hair, "you're going to need an appointment to speak with Mr. Bronius… I can't just let you in…"

"This is urgent!"

"He's kind of, um, meeting with an important person right now so uh, I don't think you caann…" she lilted. "Do you want me to put you in the schedule? He has an opening next Tuesday at 3 pm?" the receptionist suggested helpfully.

"What don't you understand? We need to talk to somebody NOW," he yelled.

"Sir," she said, still playing with her hair, "if you don't calm down I'm going to have to call security…"

Burgh made an angry noise, somewhere between a scream and a growl. "Can you tell me where the bathrooms are?" Amalia asked sweetly.

"Um... They're just around the corner to your left, near the stairwell."

"Thanks," she said, grabbing Burgh by the wrist and growling at him: "come on."

"Amalia! This is no time to be peeing!" he said after they were out of sight. She ignored him and entered the stairwell.

"What are you thinking, there's fifteen fucking floors!" Burgh's voice echoed through the stairwell, accompanied by the footsteps of someone scrambling up the stairs. They abruptly opened and shut a door about three stories up, the sound of their feet disappearing down the hall.

Amalia and Burgh followed the footsteps to the fourth floor, stepping from the stairwell into some kind of meandering linoleum-tiled hallway that led to several different rooms. A man's laughter rang clearly through the empty hallway, coming from a point just beyond where the hall turned.

"…nothing to worry about, we've got people in law enforcement. And what of your son, do you think he'll cooperate with the 'prophecy'?" said a man with a snide, oily voice.

"Of course," assured a second man in a smooth baritone that sounded very familiar, "as if he has any other option."

"Excuse me," said Amalia as she rounded the corner, coming face to face with governor Ghetsis Harmonia and Damian Bronius, the founder of the company whose building they were standing in. The two men looked surprised at her intrusion, and looked even more surprised when Burgh stepped out next to her.

"We saw a pokémon thief enter this building and we plan to apprehend him," Burgh stated, "we believe you may have seen him. He's got auburn hair, is wearing a grey and white hoodie that's got some kind of insignia on the front…"

"I'm afraid we haven't seen anyone matching that description," said Ghetsis.

"He claimed affiliation with Team Plasma," said Amalia. Ghetsis raised his eyebrows.

"I can assure you, Burgh," came Bronius' oily voice, "there is no one matching that description within this building. We have top-notch surveillance, so trust me when I say that should anyone suspicious enter the premises, I would be notified immediately.

"Besides," he continued, "Team Plasma was shut down nearly twenty years ago, so forgive me if I have a little trouble believing such a thing."

"We have proof of their activity," said Burgh. Just then, two men rounded the corner opposite Amalia. One of them she recognized as Bishop Aloysius Rood, and the other…

"That's him! That's the thief!" Amalia shouted, pointing at the culprit. "He stole my friend's pokémon!"

"What?" said Bronius, turning red with embarrassment.

"Hm. Is that true?" Ghetsis asked. Amalia nodded. The thief looked guiltily at his feet.

To his credit, Bronius quickly recovered. "As an employee of this company, your actions reflect on the nature of the entire group. Criminal activity is not tolerated. Give me the pokémon you stole." He looked irate.

The thief handed him the pokéball, who then gave it to Amalia. "See to it that your friend is reunited with her pokémon."

"I am terribly sorry," said Bronius after the thief had been taken to jail. "HR is supposed to screen all potential employees, but I guess they haven't been doing the job correctly." He then engaged Burgh in conversation, leaving Amalia standing by herself.

She was approached by Ghetsis. "Amalia Cortés, correct?" he asked, extending his left hand towards her. She hesitantly shook his hand. "You're the girl I've been hearing so much about."

Seeing the confusion in her face, he explained: "Don't be alarmed, I often follow the progress of promising young trainers."

"Um, thank you," said Amalia, still a little freaked out. There were bad vibes radiating from every inch of this man's body. "I wouldn't really call anything I do 'promising.'"

"Nonsense. In all the gym matches of yours that I've seen, your pokémon appear to be excellently trained. You seem to be taking after your father in that regard."

"Oh, haha, yeah."

"It's a shame what happened to him. He was a good man."

It still weighed on her mind, days later. She waited at the corner of Mode St. and Martin Luther King Blvd, where she was supposed to meet Cheren for lunch. He was uncharacteristically late, which meant that, were he to arrive right now, he would still be about four minutes early.

Two minutes later, she received a text from him. "sry, my purrloin is sick, think he ate something gross. can we meet tomorrow." Well damn, there went her plans for the day. She was dressed up and everything. She was about to turn around and go home but stopped when she spotted a very familiar mop of green hair.

N was sitting on a bench outside of an office building, fiddling with a hollowed-out Rubik's Cube puzzle. He didn't seem to notice her today, which Amalia found a little odd. "Hey, whatcha doin'?" she asked.

Her voice seemed to startle him, and he mumbled "you're not usually the one who approaches me."

"Huh?"

"You don't usually initiate our conversations. I'm always the one who does that."

"Oh… is that a problem?"

"No… it's just different… a variable I haven't accounted for…"

Why was he so solemn? "Um… OK. Since that's not a problem, uh…." she began, but couldn't remember why she had approached him in the first place. She looked around for some sort of visual clue, her eyes settling on the puzzle cube. "So… uh, you like puzzles?" she finished. God, that sounded so awkward.

"Sometimes," he replied, "I mostly just use this to get my mind off things, like when I'm feeling antsy… or if I'm trying to figure something out, it helps me concentrate and makes thinking about it easier. That's kind of paradoxical, but that's the only way I can explain it."

"I've never really solved a Rubik's Cube, not because I can't, mind you, but because I always felt it would be like too much effort for no real reward. I've never really thought about it as having some sort of higher purpose. I mean, I do jigsaw puzzles with my dad, if that counts."

"Your father… he was a, uh, biology professor at Striaton University, right?" It was more of a statement than a question.

"I've never told you that."

N gestured towards where Amalia kept her pokémon. "Your spinarak said so."

"Oh." Amalia had forgotten she was talking to fucking Beast Boy here.

"I like puzzles," said N, "they're reliable. There's always a set answer or answers that are objectively right, and finding those is basically just getting from point A to point B. It's different with people…

"People are unpredictable. What works for one person won't necessarily work for another. Or even with the same person, it can be different from day to day. There's just too many unknown variables for me to make sense of it."

"Well, shouldn't it be similar to understanding pokémon, right? I mean, every pokémon is an individual, and individuals are going to take different actions to respond to various factors."

"No. I understand pokémon. They usually say what they're feeling, so there's no guesswork involved. And there's nothing wrong with guessing, it's just that, with people, there are so many undefined variables that it is impossible to make any sort of educated guess. I end up just not knowing what to do, and I hate that."

"There's gonna be uncertainty in everything." said Amalia.

"No there isn't! There shouldn't be."

"Just because you think something shouldn't be, doesn't mean it's not gonna happen anyway, that's like Rule Number 1."

Seeing the look of frustration on his face, she continued: "Listen, okay? Sometimes you have to step outside your comfort zone. The more you do something, the easier it's gonna get. And I don't even mean like, just talking to people. It's more like, you just become more comfortable interacting with others, so you're no longer so worried about messing up. Because everybody messes up, most people understand that about each other. Does that make sense?"

"Not really."

Amalia ran a hand through her hair. "Like, look at this: you seem perfectly comfortable monologuing at me, and I'm presumably some kind of person. And why's that?"

N stared up at her face for a while, but said nothing.

"Amalia," he said, "last time we spoke I told you of the future I envision." He took a deep breath and stood up. "I think… I think my friends and I should test you, to see if you can see it too…"

"Fine," she said, taking a step back and releasing Elodea from her pokéball.

N sent out a woobat, which dodged most of Elodea's attempts to ensnare it. It weaved an intricate dance around her, its wings beating to an unknown rhythm that ended when the woobat twirled right into Elodea's razor leaf. Each of N's other two pokémon went down similarly, though his swadloon did manage to take Elodea out.

"Your pokémon really trust you," he said afterwards, "They seem to intrinsically know what you want them to do."

"I mostly just train them in maneuvers and the like," she said, "that way, they can figure out on their own how to respond to certain situations, whether it's a pokémon battle where the circumstances are rigidly controlled or in the wild, where anything goes. So in case something were to happen to me, they'd be able to make it OK."

A car drove by, honking its horn wildly.

"Amalia! AMALIAAAAAA!" the driver of the '97 Camry screamed as he blazed down the street. She could practically hear the bass oozing from the car's speakers, making the ground shake and messing up plate tectonics. The car rounded the corner as quickly as it came. Amalia knew only one person with a matching car and obnoxious driving habits, and he should've been back home in Nuvema.

"Uh," said N, "who was that?"

"Not a fucking clue," she replied.

The car pulled up to the curb, the driver and his pignite climbing out. "I've been looking for you," said Hector, sauntering towards her with Chris P. Bacon following at his heel.

"What are you doing here? What do you want?"

"Wow, rude. It was just really boring without you at home," he replied, "so I thought I'd come see you."

Amalia raised an eyebrow. "And… mom let you?"

"Of course! Though for the record, I told mom I was gonna visit dad in the hospital, so uh, yeah, we've gotta do that." Throughout the exchange, N had been quiet, with an expression somewhere between confused and concerned.

"Anyway!" said Hector, turning to face N, "Sorry for not yet introducing myself." He held out his hand. "A friend of my sister's a friend of mine, bro. Name's Hector, and my friend is, uh, Chris P. Bacon. The 'P' stands for, uh…" Hector blinked several times, his pinkish sclera a stark contrast to the light blue color his eyes were. "It stands for, uhhhh… pen… po… part….uh… Portobello."

N hesitantly shook his hand. "I'm N."

As soon as N shook his hand, something dawned in Hector's eyes, and he covered his mouth with his other hand, concealing a look of absolute glee. "Oh my god! I know who you are! You're the weirdo who wants to bone my sister!" He laughed as if this were the funniest thing in the world.

Amalia felt her face turn red from sheer mortification.

"What?" N asked, looking vaguely concerned.

Amalia groaned. "Oh my god…"

"Why would I want to 'bone' Amalia?" N asked. Hector laughed even harder.

This was… this was the most embarrassed Amalia had been, ever, in her entire life. This was more embarrassing than the time she peed herself in ninth grade, or that time when she accidentally lit her skirt on fire with a cigarette and had to walk around with a scorch mark on her crotch. If God had any sort of mercy in his heart, he would send a divine meteorite to kill her.

A few seconds passed, and Amalia was unfortunately still alive. She peeked through her fingers in time to see her brother smile a devious smile, and she knew exactly what was going through his head.

Hector took several deep breaths, trying to regain his composure. "Well," Hector began, still smiling evilly, "'cause you wanna fuc—"

"No, Hector!" she shouted.

"Come on, come on," he said, walking back to his car, "let's go to the store, get some eats, and then we can just like hang out at the park for a while."

"What if I have other things to do?"

"No you don't, the gym's closed today. I drove by it when I was looking for you." Did that dumbass really drive aimlessly around the city looking for her? He could have just texted her…?

"Come on Amalia, get in the car," he whined.

"Why's Chris sitting in the front seat?" Amalia asked, watching the pignite buckle itself in.

"Um, why not, he's happy there."

"Don't look at me like that, sis!" Hector said when Amalia didn't answer. "you're not riding shotgun. That's Chris' seat. Get in the back."

She huffed and climbed into the car. "Really? After all I've done for you, this is how you're gonna treat me?"

Hector leaned over towards the passenger side window, looking at N. "Hey!"

N had a look of slight surprise, like he wasn't expecting Hector to address him.

"What are you doing? Get in the car!"

"But you don't… know me?"

"Yeah, but you know my sister, so that's kinda the same thing."

N hesitated, but ended up getting in the car anyway. He sat in the seat behind Chris P. Bacon and looked very uncomfortable. Amalia leaned forward onto the back of the driver's seat. "You need to clean out your fucking car."

"Yeah I know, my ashtray's all grody."

"That's not what I meant, Hector."

He pulled into the lot of a convenience store. "Are you over 21?" he asked N.

"No."

"Damn. Guess we'll do without," he said, getting out of the car.

N stayed close by her, looking a little worried. "Have you never been to a corner store?" she asked.

"Once, maybe. I dunno," he replied.

"Well, there's a lot of really crappy snack foods, it's like a… a treasure trove... a, um, proverbial cornucopia of shitty foods. You've got your candy, your chips, drinks, various cultural snacks –really depends on what neighborhood you're in – uh, there's ICEEs and sometimes warm foods?"

She suddenly remembered something, and walked to the back of the store where they kept the cold drinks. N followed her. "Here you go, they've got like, all kinds of soda…"

"A cornucopia of soda," he said, mimicking her earlier words.

"Haha, yeah. Like that."

She could feel his eyes on her. Slowly, that feeling disappeared, as N opened the refrigeration unit and grabbed a vanilla coke.

"You got cigarettes, right Am?" Hector said as he threw his stuff in the backseat of the car.

"No, buy your own."

"But Amaliaaaa, I'm not old enough," he whined.

"You shouldn't be smoking them anyway," she said, "It's gross."

"Pretzels aren't good for you either, and you bought one of those! You'll get fat!"

"No way, all my weight goes to my ass."

N seemed to agree. "That's not necessarily a bad thing," he mumbled, evidently feeling more comfortable.

Hector started the car and twisted around to look at N. "Bro, what kinda music you like? You're a guest so you get to pick what we listen to."

"Uh… the classics, I guess?" N said it like it was a question.

"Oh, like Rush?" Hector asked.

Amalia corrected him "No, like David Bowie or Iggy Pop, dumbass."

"They ain't classic, they're contemporary, DUMBASS. David Bowie's still alive."

"So's Rush! By your definition, literally only Jimi Hendrix, Ronnie James Dio and Frank Zappa can be considered classics."

They sat down at a remote picnic table, out of view from the road. Hector set his backpack down and started rifling through it. "You did buy a lighter though, right Amalia?"

"The hell? You seriously don't have one?"

"Jk jk, I have one."

Hector held the joint in his mouth as he repeatedly tried to flick on the lighter. "So I maybe smoked a little on the way here," Hector said, "maybe I'm already a little high right now."

"Wow, really," Amalia deadpanned.

Chris P. Bacon tugged on Hector's sleeve, and Hector recalled him back into his pokéball. "Yeah, you totally couldn't tell, huh? I'm such a good actor…" he trailed off, passing the joint to Amalia.

N looked apprehensive. "It's just weed," Amalia clarified, "It, uh, helps you calm down."

"Sometimes there are things you can't do anything about." Hector shrugged. "Like, you dwell on it a lot, and it's just really, really heavy, you know? Smoking helps alleviate that." He was talking about their father.

She offered the joint to N.

"Yeah, but…" he began.

"There's always a first for everything, but it's OK if you don't want to. There's nothing wrong with that."

He pulled a face. "You've both had your mouth on that."

Amalia laughed. "Hahahaha… sorry, that's not funny, it's just… Is that really your only objection?"

"It's gross."

"It's not like we're spitting on it! I promise, we're free of disease. Haha, it's fine though, more for us, I mean –"

N hesitantly took it from her fingertips. Amalia suddenly felt very guilty. She was the person D.A.R.E. had warned about. "You seriously don't have to if you don't want, I don't want you to feel like we're forcing you or anything."

He brought the joint to his lips and inhaled. The day's remaining sunlight illuminated him from behind. He looked… elegant, though Amalia wasn't really sure that was the right word. Marijuana smoking wasn't something typically described as 'elegant,' after all.

N began to cough a little, and held the joint out to Hector. "Ugh…"

"It's unpleasant at first, but it gets better."

They continued like that for a while, eating snacks and passing the joint until there was nothing left of it. All things considered, Amalia was feeling pretty good.

"Oh my god, look at her. Look at my little baby," said Hector, scrolling from picture to picture on his phone. "Isn't she adorable?" he said, showing them a picture of a koffing wearing a pink ribbon and tutu.

"Where'd you get that? We don't have koffings in the Accumula area."

"I got her from a shelter. She's a rescue."

"I've never encountered a pokémon that appreciates being forced into clothes," accused N.

"Nah man, Puff Puff loves dress up, she's always begging me to play. Her favorite's the pink ribbon, though she also likes the black and green ribbons."

"Maybe she's begging you not to," N countered.

"Dude, can you pretty please just chill out? I'm sure I know my own pokémon better than you do."

"Your brother's annoying," N told Amalia.

"I'm right here, I can hear you."

"Yeah, I've had to put up with him for sixteen years."

"It's _seventeen._ "

"Oh man, you wouldn't believe what happened the other day," said Hector, changing the subject. "So I was in Striaton, taking Puff Puff for a walk at the playground, at that one Jewish preschool."

"There's a lot of Jewish preschools… and what the hell were you doing there anyway?"

"I wanted to take a photo of her on the slides, okay? I thought it would be cute. So I see this little girl, hanging by the fence, and there's this adult person, on the other side, talking to her!"

"You're one to talk…"

"Hey, I had permission to be there," he clarified. "But I figured it was just her parent or something, so I didn't really pay attention, but the next thing I knew, she was bawling her eyes out, saying the guy had stolen her pokémon or something.

"And I'm just like, 'wow, that's fucked up, didn't her parents ever teach her about stranger danger?' but then I like, thought to myself: what kind of asshole steals from children? What kind of asshole steals POKÉMON from children? So I took off after the guy.

"He went into this cave. And I'm stupid, so of course I ran in after him, where he and his buddies were waiting to ambush me. I'm like, well shit, it's like two-to-one right now and I'm gonna get my ass kicked. But no, instead they started bitching about how nobody but them knows how to use pokémon? It was fucking dumb, and they said that they were gonna steal my pokémon too, but I was like 'you could have literally beaten the shit outta me and accomplished that over a minute and a half ago?'

"Then one of them tried to grab Puff Puff," said Hector, "so I broke his nose."

Amalia looked up from her phone, in the middle of reading a text message from Bianca. N looked absurdly bored. "Is that it?" she asked.

"So then his friend started yelling at me and says something about Team Plasma, and I was like 'oh, the freako death cult from the 80's?' 'Cause I honestly thought they had all drank poisoned kool-aid and died, but he told me that I was thinking about Jonestown, and like, what's the difference? Well, Team Plasma's not a death cult, he said. How was I supposed to know –"

At the mention of Team Plasma, Amalia perked up. She could feel N sit up straighter, suddenly interested in what was being said.

"You've encountered them too?" she asked, feeling very worried. She didn't like the idea of her younger brother getting involved with them, especially since the past couple weeks had proven that Team Plasma wasn't as dead as the world thought it was. Last time, they had been caught before they could do any major damage, but who knew what they were planning to do this time? If they had managed to keep themselves on the down-low for nearly twenty years, then Amalia had no doubt it was something big.

"What do you mean? Is running into a bunch of preachy criminals normal for you?"

She didn't answer.

N bit his lip. He looked like he was thinking really carefully about what he was about to say. "I don't think they're entirely in the wrong."

"Hate to say this, but there's nothing right about stealing from a four-year-old child," Hector stated.

"That's not what I'm talking about," N spat, looking at Hector derisively. "Their beliefs ring true in some ways. After all, a pokémon captured from the wild is forced to undergo a lot of change in a very short period of time, it's basically being separated from everything it's ever known, all because of some human's selfish desire. The pokémon has no choice in the matter."

"Yeah, it's good that people are thinking critically about things like that, but there's a certain point where one's actions cross the line," Amalia explained, "and Team Plasma's actions definitely qualify."

N narrowed his eyes. "Care to provide an example?"

"Bianca had one of her pokémon stolen the other day. Big deal, Team Plasma steals pokémon. But the thing is, her munna is a rescue. I know, because I was there. Bianca and I had to physically remove two people who were just pummeling the poor thing. Like, repeatedly kicking and stomping on it."

N winced.

"So the pokémon obviously had several broken bones and other internal injuries. It's not like we could just give it a band-aid and let it go on its merry little way, and we couldn't just pick it up and carry it to the pokémon center, because that probably would have just made its condition worse. The only way to get her treatment without injuring her further was to capture her inside a pokéball."

She looked at N. He was watching her intently, brows furrowed.

"Even after Munro got out of the pokémon center, she couldn't just be put back in the wild. Her injuries weren't fully healed, putting her back in the wild would've been a death sentence for her, so Bianca decided to take care of her. Now that Munro is better, she doesn't want to leave Bianca.

"But look at it this way, you have this pokémon that's been traumatized, right, and it was lucky enough to have someone willing to stay with it for as long as it took to get better. Then suddenly, one day, some random guy takes it away from this person, simply because he wants to make a political statement. Don't you think that would be traumatizing for the pokémon?"

N looked resolute. "…yes, I suppose it would," he reluctantly admitted.

They sat in silence for a while longer, and Amalia watched the stars fade in and out of the clouds. From the corner of her eye, she could see that N was looking at her strangely, an unidentifiable emotion visible in the way his eyes reflected the starlight.

* * *

this is it, my magnum opus. i have gone where no self respecting person has gone before, and made n smoke weed

Footnotes:  
 **1)** B &C Group stands for Bronius and Coolsey. Who is Coolsey? I don't know. It's supposed to be a corporate conglomerate.  
 **2)** I imagine Bronius as diesel from the original thomas and friends, the one narrated by ringo. This isn't actually important information.  
 **3)** I literally just made the street names up. Please do not try to connect them to anywhere in real life. Yes, the street the gym is on is named after the president from JJBA part 7. maybe this is the same universe? (it isn't)  
 **4)** I think N is bisexual, really. If Hector were the older sibling and had met N first, then I'm sure this story would be about that romance.  
 **5)** N never had to go through the DARE program so he never learned that marijuana is evil  
 **6)** Also literally nothing can convince me that Ghetsis isn't N's biological father. Even if you're like "well he found N in the woods" it's like? yeah, but we're talking about a crazy ass dude who isolated this kid for like fifteen years in order to manipulate him into taking over Unova, and you think he was going to leave all that up to chance? There's no guarantee you'll find a perfectly good child in the woods, and Ghetsis did mention at one point that he used N bc he knew he was too jaded to be Unova's hero, which kind of implies that Ghetsis has had this plan for a loooong time? Is it really so unreasonable to think this crazy ass bastard abandoned his own kid in the woods and miraculously ''saved'' him at just the right moment?  
 **7)** also I firmly believe that N would probably be a fan of Rush, if he ever got the chance to listen to them.  
 **8)** ok, one more thing: Accumula is a satellite city of Striaton, and Nuvema is basically a neighborhood of Accumula. So they're all very close together, and it's not uncommon for someone living in Accumula to commute to Striaton or vice versa. It's kind of like how Houston is made up of itself, Bellaire, Spring, Sugarland, West U, Katy, The Woodlands, and like 8 other cities, and then galveston and the places in between.

also what is with this website's draconian filters? what is this, neopets? why do i have to use hyphens when spelling out BANANAS?


	6. Roadkill

I changed Bronius' given name, because I suddenly remembered that Prof Sycamore's first name is Augustine. Sorry.

content warning: pokemons beating each other up, mentions of animal death, ~romantic shit~

also apparently when i copied and pasted this from AO3 it messed up my italics and in some places, took out entire words. I'm really sorry about that. I've fixed it.

* * *

"You and your brother are close," observed N one day as they were walking to the Nimbasa gym.

"Uh-huh." One of Amalia's shoes was untied. She had just tied it fifteen minutes ago! This had to be some sort of curse.

"I've got two sisters," he continued, "and we spent a lot of time together, but I don't feel like we're that close."

"Really." Her shoe was going to stay tied this time, goddamnit.

"I've never really been able to put words to it, to the way they act around me. It's like they've always been somewhat distant, like there's an invisible barrier separating us…"

Amalia carefully watched her feet as she walked.

N often would often go to the gym with her in the mornings, even though she knew he hated it. Why was he a pokémon trainer, anyway? Nobody was forcing him to do it. He seemed like he would be much happier attending classes at a local college, or working at a nature preserve. Instead, he was forcing himself to endure hours and hours of pokémon battles, something he vehemently hated. Wasn't that exhausting?

He did mention once that he wanted to awaken Reshiram, the holy dragon of truth – oh. Oh… didn't that one Team Plasma thief say the same thing about the dragonite skull; that their organization was going to resurrect an ancient dragon?

Was N involved with Team Plasma?

There was no way, Amalia decided. She knew about some of their past actions, and there was no way N would condone any of that, let alone ally himself with a group that had once threatened to bomb the Castelia-Nimbasa subway line, which would have put thousands of people and pokémon in danger. He was way too soft-hearted.

She decided to push that train of thought to the back of her mind.

"Amalia," said N, "your shoe's untied again…"

"Ugh!" She bent down and tied her shoe _again_ for the third time in an hour, this time pulling the laces far tighter than was comfortable. That'll teach it to stay tied!

Cheren was waiting for them at the gym, ready to give them a run-down of the ridiculously unnecessary training schedule he had developed. "You're late," he said.

"Amalia had to tie her shoes no less than three times," N answered.

"Why would you say that? That's not important," she said.

"But it's true."

"Ugh." Cheren rolled his eyes. "Come on, Elesa's got a match today, and I'm interested to see how she battles."

They took their seats near the edge of the arena. Up against Elesa was a girl, about Amalia's age, with medium-brown skin and her hair braided _Poetic Justice_ -style. They announced her name as Francesca Alessandri. The two trainers shook hands, and the battle began.

Elesa battled beautifully, her technique was elegant yet effective, she and her pokémon always camera-ready. She led with one of her emolga, which glided around her opponent's gothita, hitting it with several jolts of electricity before switching out with another emolga. These repeated attacks did not seem to faze Francesca or her pokémon. After what seemed like an abnormal amount of time, she finally countered with a combination of feint attack and psyshock. The emolga, muscles seizing due to the attack on its nervous system, was out of the fight.

"She stalled her attack just to show off her power," Cheren commented. Amalia could feel N bristle beside her.

Elesa sent out her next pokémon, and everyone waited with bated breath to see what Francesca and her gothita would do next. Instead, her gothita tapped out, signaling it no longer wanted to fight. Francesca complied, switching it out with a golett.

Elesa's attacks bounced uselessly off of the pokémon, which took out a second emolga with a rock slide. Elesa's final pokémon, a zebstrika, ran easy circles around golett, but nothing it did seemed to have any effect. At Francesca's command, golett performed a magnitude, and just like that, she won.

"She's good, we'll have to watch out for her," Cheren stated.

"She's cruel," said N, "Gothita was begging her to call the attack, but she instead she stalled and caused her pokémon unnecessary pain. Furthermore, she could've just used Golett from the beginning and saved her other pokémon the suffering."

Cheren rolled his eyes. "Well excuse me, Pocahontas."

"What?"

"It's nothing, you wouldn't get it," said Amalia. She didn't really want to tell N that Pocahontas was the nickname they had given him.

N claimed there was something he needed to do and left early.

"Have you decided on whether you're gonna enter the championships?" Cheren asked her as they sat in the Pokémon center's cafeteria. It was around three o'clock and most people had already eaten, so they were pretty much alone.

Amalia pushed her food around on the plate. "No, not really, sorry."

"Amalia," Cheren leaned forward in his chair, "I'm sorry if this is intrusive, but does it have anything to do with your dad?"

"Cheren…"

"We've been best friends since elementary school, even before we met Bianca. We do almost everything together, so I can kinda tell when something weighs heavily on your mind…"

"And I mean," he continued, "even if we weren't friends, I'd still be able to tell. You cancelled your college plans after the accident. That's big! You were so excited about college!"

She sniffed, there was a knot in her throat. "…Yeah."

"It's been five months, Amalia," Cheren spoke slowly, carefully choosing his words, "and there's been no improvement… it's starting to look like he's not – "

Amalia couldn't breathe. "I know that! I know, okay?" She could feel tears pooling in her eyes, and she knew she wouldn't be able to hold them in. She remembered the visit she and Hector had made a couple weeks ago. Seeing her father like that, tubes everywhere… he hardly resembled the man she had looked up to. She realized then that her father was no longer there and wouldn't be coming back. All that was left was a shape that resembled her father. And now her mascara was gonna get all messed up.

"I-I just don't want to… a world without my father… I thought he'd always….." she sobbed.

Cheren looked to be tearing up, too. He wrapped his arms around her in a hug, and she cried onto his jacket.

"C'mon, it'll be ok… nevermind, it won't, but you'll get through this, okay?" he said, rubbing her back in a comforting fashion.

Afterwards, they resumed eating their meals. "Ugh," said Cheren as he swallowed a piece of dry meatloaf, "this tastes like food poisoning… why did we even come to eat here again?"

"Oh yeah!" said Cheren suddenly, "I forgot to tell you. Do you remember Felix? We went to middle school together, but he moved –"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Well, he just came back from Korea, so we were hanging out."

"Okay…"

"That's not the whole of it though. I mean, what I'm trying to say, so we were just talking and minding our own business, not really doing anything, and we were approached by the most self-righteous motherfucker. I think he was trying to steal our pokémon, that's what he said he was gonna do, but he launched into this tirade about enslavement and how he was going to free our pokémon from us, because we are, apparently, evil. I mean… that's not – that's not how stealing works. We just kind of walked away, nobody's got time to listen to some preachy asshole."

Amalia hadn't thought about Team Plasma in nearly an entire month. That is to say, they had certainly crossed her mind a couple of times, but not to a significant extent. They hadn't done anything of note since the incident at the Smythe Building; at least, nothing that directly affected Amalia, which was just as well. So long as they didn't bother her, she didn't care, because someone else would just deal with that mess, right?

Burgh wasn't nearly so relaxed. Earlier that week, he had pulled her and Bianca aside as they were exiting the Nimbasa Gym, taking them around through the gym's back entrance. There, once Elesa entered the back office, he told them one thing: that in 1987, in the aftermath of the attempted bombings, the people arrested by the government weren't actually top-ranked Plasma officials. They were just regular mooks. The true leaders of Team Plasma were still out there. Team Plasma wasn't suddenly "back," they had just never left in the first place.

There was no concrete information on who those leaders were. Burgh had a few guesses, based primarily on circumstance. Damian Bronius, the founder and CEO of B&C Group, was probably one of them. His company came about in December '87, a firm originally specializing in pokémon-assisted technologies. Even recently, several members of his company were implicated in the case against former Castelia gym leader Samson Miles. And Damian Bronius was a major contributor to Ghetsis' political campaign.

The governor seemed to be popular with the crazies. Despite that, and despite his scary demeanor and unsettling physical presence, he was pretty reasonable. The weird feeling Amalia had gotten when speaking to him could probably be explained away as like, he has some weird sexual hangup that taints every single interaction or something.

But what did the CEO of a company based on pokémon-assisted technology stand to gain by supporting a politician who campaigned for pokémon rights? How had Team Plasma evaded notice for so long? The true leaders were probably never publicly linked to Team Plasma in the first place, it was possible that not even most Plasma members knew who they were. From what she had gathered, Amalia felt there was one person who could offer definite proof of their identities: a young woman, identified in court documents only as "A.G.", who had been the fed's primary witness used to indict Team Plasma for the bombings. But A.G.'s initials were all anyone had of her. Following the trial, all instances of her vanished into the ether.

Whatever, it didn't matter to Amalia. She wasn't going to get involved anymore, right? It was late. She needed to take off her tinfoil hat and go to sleep. The gym was closed tomorrow, so Amalia decided she'd use her Monday morning to run a few errands.

Her internal clock, god damn the wretched thing, decided that "the morning" meant "four-twenty-three am" and this is the story of how she ended up standing in a 24-hour Walgreens, staring blankly at the shelves in the pokémon food aisle, trying to remember what the fuck sigilyphs even ate. _Could_ they eat? How does one go about feeding a weird Lovecraftian abomination? Maybe it just sucked nutrients out of the environment, like an air plant. She grabbed a bag and squinted at the label. Maybe she was overthinking this.

From the corner of her eye she spotted someone standing to her left. It was Francesca.

"Hey," said Amalia, getting her attention, "your gym match yesterday was really good. You battle really well."

"Yeah. I know," she replied tersely, ending the conversation.

Anyway, sigilyph were sort of like birds, right? So they'd eat, like, birdseed, or small pokémon or something like that, probably? She was mostly knowledgeable about bug-types, and didn't really know much of anything about… whatever sigilyph was. So maybe she could just buy birdseed now, and then later on see if Selphy would try to eat a wild patrat or something.

Training wild-caught pokémon was really difficult, thought Amalia as she exited the store. Training Hecate had been hard too, but she'd had her father there to help her, and she had been there the moment Hecate hatched. Hecate never had a phase of "getting used to" Amalia, because Amalia had always been there. Hecate viewed Amalia as a constant part of her life, similar to the way Amalia viewed her father, a view she was currently struggling with.

Amalia released Hecate from her pokéball, and the ariados skittered around and rubbed her palps together, excited for the early morning darkness. She allowed Hecate to lead her through the city, crossing streets and turning corners until they ended up at a park overlooking the ocean, several blocks from the pokémon center. Amalia sat down on the grass and allowed Hecate to crawl into her lap.

She smiled. When she was with Hecate, she felt like she could forget about what was happening a little bit, forget about her father, lying prone in the brain trauma ward unable to speak or think or have his organs properly function. Maybe she would get through things okay, as long as Hecate was there. Because having Hecate was like having a part of her dad around, even if only in spirit.

"Amalia?" said a quiet voice.

She turned her head. "Huh? What are you doing up?"

N sat down next to her, pulling his knees to his chest. "I couldn't sleep," he said. He sounded pathetic. "I had a bad dream."

"What about?"

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"Ok," she said, and watched Hecate clean her feet.

"I saw someone swerve their car to hit a family of minccino."

"In your dream?"

He took a shaky breath. "No, yesterday."

"Oh," she said. She didn't really know what to say to that.

"There was no one else on the road, so there was no reason for them to swerve like that. They did it just for their own sick enjoyment." N's forehead was resting on his knees. He was breathing audibly and sniffling. Oh… was he crying?

"Don't let it get to you," she said, awkwardly patting him on the shoulder, "some people are just assholes."

He choked back a sob. "But those minccino…"

She didn't want to say that she had probably allowed Hecate to devour several dozen minccino families. In the grand scope of things, one dead minccino family really meant nothing, there were plenty of other minccino out there. Sure, it was unjust and cruel, but things happen. But that family of minccino mattered to N, all pokémon did, and it was interpersonal relationships that made deaths so upsetting, wasn't it?

"If pokémon and people were truly separate, then stuff like this wouldn't have to happen," he said.

Amalia wasn't going to comment on that. "Things like that are _going_ to happen, whether you like it or not," she said.

"Tch."

"Try not to dwell on it too much." N looked slightly offended by her suggestion. "Like, try to think of something fun that you've always wanted to do."

Knowing him, 'something fun' would probably be a math problem or a puzzle or some other boring, horrible task that only he could enjoy. Physics. The quadratic equation. Any kind of computational science. Typing at a speed of 3 words per minute.

He sniffled and wiped at his eyes. "I've never been to an amusement park before," he said.

"We literally have to walk through it to get to the gym," she replied flatly.

"Ugh, that's not what I meant! Roller coasters are created from many complex formulas… there's so much that goes into them. It'd be interesting to see it in action…" he trailed off.

"Well, there's nothing stopping you from going to the theme park? You're an adult, you can do what you want."

He stared at her, like he was expecting her to say something.

"We could…. go… today?" she offered.

His eyes lit up. "You're right. Amalia, let's go right now."

"Uh, yeah… It opens at nine."

"Well what time is it now?" he asked.

"It's not even five-thirty."

N made a frustrated noise and pulled at his hair. "Then what am I supposed to do until then?!" His outburst startled Hecate, who raised her front legs and hissed.

"Whoa girl, settle down." Amalia stood up and brushed off her legs. "Listen, if you wanna go to the amusement park, then we should go around 10 because… I kinda just need to lie in bed for a while."

"C'mon Hecate," she yawned and started walking towards the pokémon center. Hecate walked backwards behind her, maintaining her full threat display and hissing at N. "He's not gonna hurt us, Hecate, you can calm down…"

She had barely finished getting dressed and putting on makeup when N started knocking furiously at her door. How he'd found out her room number was anyone's guess, but she didn't really have enough time to think about that. As soon as she opened the door he had pretty much started dragging her to the park.

"This is amazing!" said N, looking up at the towering roller coasters.

"We walk through this _every day_."

"Yeah, but not like this."

"Well, what do you want to do first, then? Do you want cotton candy?"

He gave her a strange look, at which she realized he had no idea what she meant. "Y'know like… spun sugar, candy floss… it's colorful? Ok, um, never mind then."

"Let's go on that ride," he said, pointing at the scariest, twistiest ride in the whole damn park. "It's beautiful," he breathed.

They got in line and he immediately started rambling about the physics of roller coasters and the precise equations that made them possible. Amalia mostly zoned it out, occasionally nodding or dropping an 'oh, really' to keep the conversation going. It really was kind of cute in a way, the way he reacted with amazement at trivial things that she'd always taken for granted.

"Ah, N… you should probably put your hair up."

"But it is up, it's tied back," he argued.

"No, I mean you should put it _up_. So it doesn't hit someone in the face when we're on the ride."

"Oh," he said.

"Here, I'll help."

"Holy shit, your hair's a mess," said Amalia, after she removed his hair tie, "have you ever, like, tried to brush it?"

"Just makes it worse."

She managed to pull it back into a rather decent-looking bun. He turned back around to face her, his cheeks tinted slightly pink. "I feel stupid," he said, "I look stupid."

"No you don't," she said, "you look handsome."

His face turned a deeper shade of red.

The attendant motioned for them to get on. N looked like he could barely contain his excitement.

Minutes later, as the railcar began to decelerate and the screams began to die down, Amalia noticed that N was laughing. Really, genuinely laughing.

"That was so much fun!" he said, still giggling. "We HAVE to go on another."

So they did. And then they went on another. And another. And another. And another.

"Aren't you tired?" Amalia whined, "we've been on every ride in the park."

"We haven't been on the Ferris wheel."

"Yeah, but… that's boring," she said.

"It can't be boring." He grabbed Amalia's hand and marched over to where the Ferris wheel was. "Ferris wheels are awesome, Amalia."

"Yeah, if you're from the 1930's and and Easter Sunday is the only thing you have to look forward to."

"Uhhh… yeah, hate to tell you," said an exhausted-looking employee, "but it's closed for maintenance right now." There was an emotional deadness in his eyes that could only come from having to deal with scores of belligerent children.

"What? Really?" said N, visibly distraught.

The employee looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. "Yes, really. You can try getting on it, but it ain't gonna move."

"I've never been on one before," N pouted to Amalia.

"There's always next time," Amalia assured him.

Despite herself, she found N's happiness infectious, and as they exited the park, she felt it would be criminal to let that end anytime soon. "We don't have to go home just yet, we could always explore the city a little bit… go eat… you know," she suggested. He was surprisingly quick to agree.

They found themselves by a wooded area to the north of town. N's eyes grew wide for a bit, and he grabbed Amalia's hand and led her though the trees. If this had happened a couple months ago, Amalia would have thought she was being murdered. It was kind of funny how things happened the way they did.

The two of them emerged into a small clearing. N let go of her hand and took a couple strides forward. He said something Amalia couldn't quite hear, and motioned for her to come closer.

As she approached, he started speaking "it's fine, she's a good person, she won't hurt us…" He wasn't talking to her.

A black pokémon scurried past Amalia and jumped into his arms. It was a zorua, a kind of wild fox, and it glared at Amalia.

"He says you smell like a predator."

What a rude little fucker. "Big words coming from an obligate carnivore."

"He might be referring to your ariados."

That made sense. The zorua was about the size of something Hecate would eat. "I would _never_ let Hecate eat a wild pokémon… completely unprovoked," she lied.

Amalia sat down next to N on the grass as he played with the pokémon. It was like watching Disney royalty in action. As the sun began to set, more zorua came out to greet him. Right now would probably be a terrible time for her to admit she wasn't particularly fond of dogs. N seemed to be enjoying himself, smiling and laughing in a way Amalia had never really seen him do.

"They all really, really love you," she observed, "it's crazy."

"There was a family of zorua I was really close to when I was a kid," he explained. "I get along well with all pokémon, but I guess it's still just easier, with them."

"Huh," said Amalia. "Oh, that reminds me… what's your real name, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Uh…"

"Because it can't just be one letter."

"Um."

"It's fine, it doesn't really matter," she said, "I was just wondering because I have a cousin with a ridiculous name – well, actually, two cousins, they're twins – I was just curious if you guys had the same name."

N didn't respond.

"He prefers to be called Nat or Nate," she began. N sat completely still. "But, get this, his name's _Natividad_. Like, you know, 'Christmas.'"

She heard N exhale.

"And his sister is Rosario, which isn't a bad name by itself, but combined with Natividad… Like, I get it, you want everyone to know your kids are being raised Catholic. But like, just name your kids Jesús and Maria. That's just so much easier, and at least then one of your kids isn't walking around named _Christmas_."

N giggled.

"Christmas! Can you imagine? Someone across the street says 'Merry Christmas' to someone else and you're like 'What? What the FUCK did you just say about me?'"

"It's like," she continued, "it's like naming your daughter Chastity and then being surprised when she gets caught sucking dick at a high school football game."

N covered his mouth to hide his laughter. She really hadn't said anything funny, but she found it flattering that he thought so. They were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. She put a hand on his knee.

He leaned into her slightly. "Amalia," he said quietly "the first time we met, in Accumula…" he trailed off.

"That was the first time… I had ever…" He swallowed. "You and Cheren, that was the first time I'd ever interacted with people my own age."

"What?!"

He seemed startled by her reaction.

"That's wrong. That shouldn't happen! Didn't you say you had sisters? What about them?" She was trying to grasp at anything that could render what he said untrue.

"They're both much older than me. We're at least five years apart."

"I'm sorry," she said, trying to calm down, trying to get past the look of puzzlement in his eyes.

"I'm so sorry," she said again.

He looked down to where her hand rested on his leg, then looked back up to her eyes. He was giving her a strange look, like he was searching for something in her face.

"Are you OK?" she asked.

"Yes, I think so." He looked back at her hand.

"What's wrong?"

"Why are you touching me?" he asked.

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No," he said, "but why?"

"Do you seriously not know?" Amalia asked, and his blank expression told her all she needed to know. This seriously could not be happening. There was no way she was going to explain the birds and the bees to a fully grown man. Absolutely not.

"I'm, um, flirting with you," she explained.

He froze, like a stantler caught in the headlights, his face flushed and his mouth slightly agape. "Oh," he said.

Amalia removed her hand from his leg and put her arm around his shoulders. He allowed himself to be pulled closer until they lay on the ground, his cheek resting against her collarbone. "Is this OK?" she asked.

"Yeah, this is OK," he said, and they lay there watching the clouds until she had to leave.

Several days later, when Amalia was standing in line at the pokémon center, Francesca stood several feet behind her. Without warning, she closed the distance between them, and whispered to Amalia: "your friend is hiding something."

She turned around. "What?"

"You know who I'm talking about," said Francesca as she walked off.

* * *

This chapter took me a while. Francesca was going to be a one-off character, but I managed to royally fuck that up so I had to figure out how she fit into the story, which lead me to rework a bunch of other things in the overarching plot, and then outline the next three chapters to see where everything fit together. I didn't rewrite the story _for_ Francesca, but having her in the story caused me to take a step back to see where all the preexisting things I had created fit together... and the answer was that they fit together, just not in a satisfying way, and also that I had no concrete timeline of past events.

Footnotes:  
1) I feel like pokemon battles aren't nearly so cut-and-dry IRL as they are in the games. So there's like moves, combinations of moves, different tactical maneuvers, and the like. I also think that pokemon evolution, in a natural setting, isn't very clear cut. There's variation and stuff, which is why, in the games, you sometimes find evolved pokemon at lower levels than they would have evolved. Hecate evolved late for an Ariados, for example.

2) Also, for the universe this story is set in, Ariados have 8 legs like actual spiders. They tend to keep their back legs pointed upwards, though, but they lower them to the ground as one of their threat displays. Large spider threat displays are kind of cute. Hecate (and other ariados, by extension) is some combination of wolf spider, jumping spider, and a little bit of big-ass tarantula. Spiders are really good at sensing vibrations, which is why Hecate can follow Amalia while walking backwards.

3) Just because N can communicate with all pokemon doesn't mean all pokemon are going to _like_ him.

4) Amusement parks are ridiculously expensive. I mean, I wouldn't know, since THEY TORE DOWN ASTROWORLD 11 years ago and I'm still pretty bitter about it tbh. Since Elesa's gym is in the park, it's free to get in the park, however if you want to ride the rides, you have to buy a special pass. Also, the food there is ridiculously expensive.

5) Ferris wheels are fucking boring. Sorry, y'all.

6) N would HATE this song: Roadkill by Devin Townsend (this was SUPPOSED to be a link, thank you fanfiction dot net for messing that up).

7) forgot to mention, but everyone I've known named Natividad has hated their name. My apologies to all y'all.

anyways, thanks for reading! I aim to be a professional writer, so any feedback is appreciated!


	7. Awkward Soul

hahahaha back at it again in nimbasa city

content warnings: underage drinking, marijuana usage, animal cruelty, self-deprecating jokes about Texas. I also mention a genre of pornography, but it's used as a joke.

* * *

"Well, Drayden is definitely in my top ten, maybe even top five. Dude's built like a fuckin' beartic!" Hector remarked.

"Can't really argue with that," said Burgh, who moved his game piece eight places.

They were talking about which celebrities they found most attractive. Drayden wasn't really a celebrity, but he was more famous than the average person. Amalia had to admit, for a man in his late 60's, Drayden was in better shape than most men 40 years younger than him.

Burgh had invited Amalia to hang out. She thought this meant they were going to see a movie or something, but apparently that just meant they were going to hang out at his apartment and play board games. Burgh had also invited Elesa, who'd invited Bianca, who in turn had invited Cheren. Amalia brought N along, because spending time around other people would probably do him some good. Hector had somehow gotten himself invited, and now this gathering was just one big clusterfuck of too many people stuck in a very small living room. Burgh had a framed poster of Drayden posing in a very… athletic way, which was how this whole conversation got started.

Hector continued: "And then I think maybe Beyoncé…"

"Literally everyone is attracted to Beyoncé. I'm gay, and I'm attracted to Beyoncé."

"Such is the power of Queen Bey…" said Hector philosophically.

"Beyoncé is one of the most recognized musical artists. She's a big deal," Amalia told N, who looked very confused about the whole thing.

"Yeah, you'd probably prefer someone like J Lo, huh?" Hector addressed N, "you know, Puerto Rican, a great ass… a lot like a certain person in the room with us… "

"Shut up and lay off them, Hector," said Bianca, whose game piece was currently residing in prison. "Anyways, I like Rihanna…"

"Where'd you even get that shirt anyway?" Burgh asked, talking to Hector.

Hector was wearing his favorite shirt. It was styled like a black sports jersey, the back emblazoned, in big reflective lettering, with the number "69" and the word "ＢＵＫＫＡＫＥ" written across the top. He paid forty dollars for it, Amalia knew, because he'd used her pay pal account.

"Listen, I am a connoisseur of uh, fashion. I'm just… taking it upon myself to spread the good word of bukkake. Evangelize, if you will."

"Doesn't bukkake spread itself?" asked Bianca. Cheren laughed.

"What's bukkake?" asked N.

Hector smiled. "Oh man, I am _so_ glad you asked that question."

Amalia shot her brother a warning glance.

"Anyway, you know which pop star I cannot stand?" said Burgh.

"Is it Lady Gaga?" Elesa asked flatly, rolling her dice and picking a chance card.

"It's Lady– uh, yeah, her."

"You know Burgh, you're really such a drag sometimes," she drawled, "you should try being a queen instead. You'd be much less predictable."

Burgh made an indignant face.

"That's disgusting!" N shouted as Hector leaned away from him, "there's no way that's real."

"Believe it, bro. That's how noodles are made." Hector smirked. "Seriously dude, look it up."

"Clay fucking terrifies me," said Burgh, "I mean it. The guy's from Texas, well, I mean, he's from Japan, but he's lived in Texas for over, like, 30 years? And that's pretty much the same thing as being born in Texas. I can guarantee that he's got at _least_ six guns on his person at all times."

"That's one for each of his hands…" said Hector, who'd clearly ascended to a higher plane of being and could now see what no one else could.

"Don't say that," said Burgh, "don't make him any scarier than he already is."

"Oh my god, get over yourself. Clay is really such a down-to-earth guy," said Elesa.

"Ugh," said Burgh. He was four spaces away from GO. It was his turn again, and he rolled the dice, confident he'd get his 200 dollars.

"Ooh, bad luck." Elesa winced.

"Let's see…" said Cheren, checking his card. "I've got a hotel on it, so rent for the Boardwalk is going to be $2000. Now pay up." He held out his hand.

"Nooooo," Burgh whined, pulling at his hair.

"I mean, you could sell me all of your properties, but I don't think that would do you any good."

"Noooo, how could you do this to me? In my own home? Whyyyy…" he whined melodramatically.

"It's because…" Cheren paused. "I'm a free bitch, baby."

"Oh. My. God! You're evil! You're the worst! I hate literally all of you!" Burgh stood up and stalked towards the kitchen. "I need a drink."

"Can't we just quit while we're ahead and say Cheren won?" asked N, who had chosen to bow out of the game several turns before and was visibly dying of boredom.

"Don't you want me to win?" asked Amalia.

"Well yeah, but it isn't going to happen," he stated. Amalia looked at him in shock.

"If anyone wants beer, it's in the fridge," said Burgh, "there's also a pitcher of sangria."

By the time the food got there, their Monopoly game had been mostly forgotten, and they'd moved to the couch and several chairs.

"So let me tell you guys about the time my sister tried to feed me to our dad's ariados," Hector began, trying to balance a beer can on his knee.

"Did you really?" N whispered to her as Hector continued his story.

"Kind of."

"I don't blame you."

"To be fair, he did eat my crayons."

Amalia took a sip of her drink. It had been months since she'd last had alcohol, so her tolerance was a bit lower than what she was used to. N had gotten himself a beer, but he didn't appear to like it very much, judging by the face he made whenever he tried to drink it. "You don't have to drink if you don't want to. Do you want me to get you some water?" she asked. He nodded.

When she got back from the kitchen, everyone seemed to be talking about movies.

"Cheren, nobody wants to hear it. Your taste in movies is terrible," said Burgh. Amalia sat down and slung an arm around N's shoulders.

"You're just bitter that I bankrupted you in Monopoly," said Cheren, "that you couldn't read my poker face."

"Okay, fine! I recognize you, Cheren Yeun, as being categorically great at everything, okay? Can we stop now?"

At some point, N had started drinking Amalia's sangria, which she only just now noticed. "Hey, you can't do that." She grabbed the now-empty glass from his hand.

"You took the rest of mine."

"That's because you didn't want it! I still wanted that!"

"It doesn't matter. I had to establish equilibrium somehow," he laughed.

"Burgh, I can't believe you're facilitating underage drinking," said Elesa, who was currently on her third beer. "You're such a shitty role model."

Amalia looked around. Everyone looked exhausted. Bianca was asleep. "I think your brother's dead, Amalia," said Cheren. He poked at Hector, whose face was planted firmly on the coffee table.

"Don't we need to go back to Nimbasa?" asked N.

"We aren't doing that tonight," she yawned. She was absentmindedly playing with his hair, twirling it around her finger. Everyone else looked to be either asleep or in the process of falling asleep. "Hey, N, c'mere," she whispered. As he leaned down to hear her, she reached up and pressed a kiss to his jaw. Then she turned over and fell asleep.

The next morning, after they dropped N off in Nimbasa, Hector turned to face her. "Dude, Amalia, we're going to Driftveil, you've gotta check this thing out."

"What is it?"

"So I met up with some buddies in Driftveil…"

"You have friends?"

He ignored her comment. "We were smoking a bowl by the cold storage, because like, people don't often get caught there… and like, we saw these people. They were like, really suspicious. Mega suspicious. Superspicious."

"Hector, your brain's so strung out, you think everyone is suspicious."

"Well I can't help it if they are!"

Amalia gathered her stuff and grabbed the door handle. "Listen Hector, I'm getting out of the car."

"No!" he said, leaning over and grabbing the hem of her shirt. "Amalia, wait! These guys were with that freaky cult! They were wearing the symbol and stuff. I swear it!"

"You're not exactly the most credible person, I hope you know."

"I swear to god! It's Team Plasma, for real!"

Amalia got back in the car. "Fine, fine."

"So you're gonna come check it out?"

"I said _fine!_ " she snapped.

When they got there, Amalia stepped out of the car. "They were hanging around that warehouse." He pointed. "Over there."

She looked at her brother but he hadn't moved an inch. "Well, aren't you gonna come with? You're the one who brought me out here."

"Uh," said Hector, who was sitting frozen in the middle of lighting a blunt. "I was just gonna wait for you in the car." The blunt moved up and down as he spoke. "I'm sure you can handle it fine without me."

"Ugh." Seriously? If she was being honest with herself, she should have expected this. Amalia pulled her arms through the loose sleeves of her leather bomber jacket.

She slipped through the warehouse's door. "I literally don't have a single pokémon that's good in the cold," she said to herself.

Inside it was… cold, to be completely obvious. As far as Amalia could see, which wasn't very far due to the large storage crates that surrounded everything, there wasn't a single other person inside. The crates were probably filled with frozen dinners or something, and she carefully made her way through the facility. It was completely silent, like the part of a horror film immediately before someone's about to be offed by the monster, and Amalia wasn't creeped out at all, no way.

Something grabbed her arm and put a hand over her mouth. "What are _you_ doing here?" they hissed. Amalia made a "mmmph!" sound. The person turned her around and released her. It was Francesca.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Amalia echoed.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Francesca sneered. "Go home, this has nothing to do with you."

"Oh, so I suppose _you_ have a perfectly valid reason to be here, then? What, do you work here? I could report you to OSHA for not wearing your safety gear."

"It's none of your business what I'm doing," she replied tersely.

"Oh, but the people I associate with is somehow your business?" Amalia retorted.

The sound of footsteps echoed through the storage boxes.

"Shit," they both said in unison, apparently also having the same idea to hide behind and in between several crates.

The source of the footsteps passed them by. It was a man, dressed in cold-weather tactical gear that had a distinct, grey hood. The back of his uniform bore the Plasma insignia.

"So Team Plasma _is_ here," Amalia muttered.

Francesca narrowed her eyes. "You're here for them too, huh." It was a statement.

"Well I'm certainly not here to have fun," said Amalia, "I'm trying to find out what kind of operation they're trying to pull here, and why. Care to tell me why you're tailing them?"

"Personal reasons," she said, and left it at that.

"If you really have to know, they're using this warehouse to store the pokémon they've stolen," said Francesca.

"What?"

"Look." She pried open the lid of one of the smaller containers. It was filled with pokéballs, each one containing its own pokémon.

"Why are they keeping them in cold storage?" asked Amalia, her brows furrowed.

Francesca grabbed one of the pokéballs and released what was inside. It was a lethargic-looking deino.

"The cold keeps them complacent," observed Amalia. "Are all the cargo boxes filled with pokéballs?"

"Probably not," said Francesca, who'd apparently decided to trust Amalia. "I can't really imagine Team Plasma stealing this many pokémon. Besides, I think that'd be too conspicuous."

The two of them heard footsteps echoing from the concrete floor. "We need to hide," said Francesca.

"We're already hiding," Amalia pointed out.

"We need to hide better."

She motioned to the deino. "What about that?"

"Just grab it."

Amalia picked up the pokémon and they moved deeper into the jungle of crates. The footsteps grew louder, and as they got closer she realized they were accompanied by a man's irritated voice.

"Damn it. I _told_ him, 'don't send me anywhere cold.' And what does he do? He stations me at the fucking cold storage." It was a middle-aged man, wearing a nice purple coat. He was on the phone, and he ducked into a small alcove for privacy. "'You're the only person qualified to lead the operation there,' he says. This is Boris' company, shouldn't _he_ be here?... Yes, yes, I know he's got business elsewhere, but so do I. Namely, I've got business not _freezing my ass off_ , thank you very much.

"... I've got everything in order. I doubt Clay or anyone else suspects anything. People from the South take everything at face value. For now, we should just play along with the 'prophecy' or whatever it is Rood and Gorm are so adamant in believing. Religion really is the opiate of the weak, it seems…

"… I wouldn't mind if you sent another crate of ammunition. Our King did say he was willing to accomplish our goals at all costs…. Understood, I'll await the king's arrival, hopefully it's sooner rather than later, I'm freezing." The man hung up and left.

"Ammunition?" Francesca muttered, "so there's more than just stolen pokémon here…"

"We should leave," she said to Amalia, "if they've got weapons, then confronting them now would be a bad idea."

They carefully, quietly made their way out of there. The summer heat felt wonderful on Amalia's skin as she walked back to the car. She knocked on the window for Hector to unlock it. To her surprise, Francesca had followed her to the car, and climbed in at the same time she did.

"What are you doing?" asked Amalia distastefully.

"I'm going back to Nimbasa," she stated plainly.

"Can't you go back the way you got here?"

"I'm not spending my whole afternoon on public transportation."

"That's a fair point," said Hector, who up until now hadn't said a word or even moved. "Oh man."

"Do you know which company rents that warehouse space?" said Amalia as they were driving.

"Why would that matter?"

"Team Plasma couldn't just unload illegal goods into a warehouse that they legally don't have access to. They'd get caught for sure. They wouldn't be able to rent a warehouse under their own name, either. Whichever business owns this warehouse is probably a sponsor of Team Plasma."

Francesca nodded. They spent the remainder of the drive in silence.

Of course, even though they had put that off until another day, Amalia still had the sick deino to deal with. If she had stolen it from Team Plasma, who had stolen it from someone else, did that make her a bad person, too? Since there were so many pokémon stolen by Team Plasma, it was damn near impossible to trace any single one of them back to their original trainers. It wasn't like she could just leave it, it was cold and shivering and probably near death, so she'd done the right thing. The hard part would be justifying it to the pokémon center nurses without looking like a poacher. Deino were highly dangerous, and required a special license, so walking into a pokémon center carrying a heavily injured one probably wouldn't look too good…

Amalia lifted the deino onto the veterinary counter. The nurse on duty was a matronly woman with soft eyes and the look of someone who thought the Despicable Me minions were cute and funny. "Listen, ah – I know I'm not supposed to have this, but I was hiking near the interstate and I saw someone dump a box by the side of the road and…" She motioned towards the sick pokémon.

"People are such assholes," said Nurse Joy, "it's just a baby. You did the right thing, honey." She patted Amalia on the arm and handed the deino off to another nurse. "We'll call you when you can come pick it up, she said."

"Uh," said Amalia. The nurse looked at her impatiently. "Don't I need some kind of license… you know, for the deino…"

"Are you licensed to handle dangerous pokémon?"

Amalia thought about Hecate. "Well, uh, yes."

"Then all you need to do is take a short online course about handling pokémon with violent temperaments. You can probably find it on the amanita website."

"Dangerous" pokémon weren't necessarily more dangerous than any other pokémon. Any pokémon could kill a human probably, if the circumstances were right. Some were just… more efficient at it.

…That wasn't really the right word. "Dangerous" pokémon were just harder to train. If an inexperienced trainer tried to train a hydreigon, they'd probably lose a couple of fingers. Worst-case scenario the trainer wouldn't know how to deescalate, and the pokémon could end up killing him or others.

Amalia had a class D trainer identification, which meant she could train pokémon like Hecate, a giant woodsmen ariados. Giant woodsmens were along the more poisonous end of the ariados spectrum, though they rarely bit humans and if they did, it was rarely fatal. But they were exotic to Unova, and Hecate and her sisters had been specifically bred for venom potency. Giant woodsmens were also known to be belligerent, however that kind of behavior had only been observed by people who got too close to an egg sac or threatened their social group, so Amalia thought it was kind of biased.

Amalia wove through the stacks at the Steele Public Library, hoping to find an unoccupied study area in a remote corner of the floor. To her luck, she found one – with really comfy-looking chairs – pretty close to the section she wanted to be at.

Now Amalia wasn't usually a big frequenter of libraries. They were too quiet, too cold, and she didn't want to look like some kind of nerd. In high school, she had only gone to the library to pick up her textbooks at the beginning of the year. The librarian there had a squawky voice, like a chatot, and she was very anal about not eating in the library, so it was just easier not to use it at all.

Amalia sat her backpack down. Hector had been nice (for once) and brought her laptop from home, so she set it up on the table.

Not even two weeks ago, she'd vowed to ignore Team Plasma and not get involved, but… It was just so fucked up, the way they had all those pokémon hidden in the cold storage. What did they need them for, anyway? Wasn't it supposed to be their M.O. to release pokémon back into the wild?

And the boss guy, the guy in that nice coat, he'd said something about a 'king,' right? This was America… wasn't the whole point of the country that they _didn't_ have monarchies? So who the heck did Team Plasma think they were, establishing a fucking monarchy on US soil? The ghosts of George Washington and Uncle Sam and the first braviary ever born were gonna have to smack a bitch…

Jokes aside, it was a little strange. A king, an heir, a prophecy… did these all refer to the same person? Was he supposed to be some kind of Messiah?

The warehouse Team Plasma used was currently owned by a company called Solviso, which was owned by a guy named… get this… Boris Ryoku. That was an… interesting combination of names. That couldn't be his real name, right? A company with a hispanic name, owned by a guy with a Japanese-sounding surname, whose first name was _Boris_? Was anyone even named Boris anymore? Was this the fucking Cold War?

Ok, ok. Amalia was going to stop. No more jokes, it was time to get serious. For real. She'd accumulated a nice stack of contemporary history books, so far none of which had given her any useful information about Team Plasma.

She did find, however, in a remote corner of the internet, a scan of a local newspaper article from '89. It was announcing the recent nuptials between a Mr. Ghetsis Harmonia and… well, the scan was very poor quality, so Amalia couldn't really make out the lady's name… Habfdhn Oorlis? Hahaha, not really, the name was too pixillated to read.

It didn't really surprise Amalia. So what if he'd been married? Most people did that at some point in their lives.

Amalia yawned and checked the time. She'd managed to look through all the books save for one, so she was probably going to check that one out. There was no telling what kind of useless information she could glean from it.

It had gotten dark while she was in the library, and Amalia took her time walking back to the Pokémon Center. She was less than a block away when someone almost barreled into her.

"N? What is it? Are you okay?"

He bent over to catch his breath. "I've been looking for you."

"Wh-"

"Come with me," he said, grabbing her by the wrist and heading in the opposite direction.

"What's going on?"

"You're after Team Plasma, right?" he asked. "There was an incident earlier, and they've hidden in the amusement park."

"Um… Okay," she said. They arrived in the park, and though it wasn't crowded, there were just enough people that it would be hard to spot a particular person in the crowd. Still, N had never seemed particularly concerned with Team Plasma before, so why now? Had they done something particularly horrible today?

N stopped walking. They'd somehow ended up by the Ferris Wheel without her noticing. "I don't think we'll be able to see them from here," he said, gazing upwards. "We might be able to spot them if we rode the Ferris Wheel…"

Oh, so that's what it was. "Listen, N," she laughed, "you don't need to make up a convoluted reason to ride the Ferris Wheel with me. You could just ask." She wove their fingers together.

"…shit," he mumbled, "that… certainly would have been easier."

N looked very, very nervous. "Are you alright? Is something bothering you?" she asked.

"N-no," he replied, "I was just… I've never been on one before…"

"I've been enamored with them, since I was a child. It's… they're just… elegant." His voice was picking up speed the closer they got in line. "The mechanics, the circular motion, how many different mathematical equations come together to make it work. I've always found it fascinating…"

She smiled at him and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.

His nervousness seemed to dissipate once they actually got on the ride. "Amalia, you know about the legends right? About the hero who united Unova?"

Well, this was an odd turn of conversation. "What of it?"

"There were two heroes… One, partnered with the Holy Dragon of Truth, and the other… the dark dragon Zekrom, the lodestar of justice and belief."

"Yeah, okay."

"The legends also say that one day, two new heroes will be chosen by those dragons. Let me get to the point. Have you ever given thought that you might be destined to succeed one of these heroes?"

This was getting really weird really fast, and the Ferris Wheel hadn't even started moving yet. They were still loading people onto it at the bottom.

"Not at all," she said.

N gazed out the window, once again looking very nervous. "Um," he said, fiddling with the pendant that hung from his neck, "I also need to tell you something."

"Okay." She placed a hand on his knee, hoping it would reassure him. "I'm listening."

The ride finally began to move.

"Well, to start," he said, "I'm the King of Team Plasma."

* * *

hahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA lol

u knew things wouldn't last! shit has hit the fan! lmao! LOL

Footnotes:  
1) I, for some horrible reason that I do not understand, feel obligated to reference bukkake in almost every story I write, as a joke. Bukkake is a japanese word that sometimes refers to the making of certain noodle dishes, and years ago I misunderstood it as literally meaning "noodle-making." Bukkake is more widely known a genre of porn where a bunch of guys jack off onto someone else. And let's face it, if anyone were going to wear a shirt like that, it would be Hector. (also I own a shirt like that, except it says 'hentai' instead of bukkake. have I mentioned that Hector is based off myself?)

2) like I said four (?) chapters ago, Burgh is based on someone I knew IRL who was gay and loved Madonna. This guy hated Lady Gaga with a passion. I'm not friends with this person anymore, because he was also a raging misogynist and he told me bisexuality was "fake." Fortunately, Burgh isn't an asshole like the person he was based on.

3) Also yeah, Amalia and Hector are Puerto Rican. Cheren is Korean.

4) Boris Ryoku is NOT his real name! He just really likes the name Boris.

5) Not really a footnote, but I really miss my school's library. I miss having somewhere I could go and get shit done. My last memories of that library aren't that great, because it's where I was when I learned that Paul died.

anyways! I need to focus on jobs and grad school applications! I want to attend a creative writing MFA program.  
Also, I do freelancing! So if you want me to write something for you, contact me on **fiverr**! My username is " **Blueschists**." I need help getting my freelancing career off the ground, anything can help!

You can also reach me on **tumblr** , where my username is also ' **blueschists** '


	8. Changing Horizons

content warning: graphic violence. blood. animal harm. people hurting each other with words

listen, when i said this is a slow burn fic, i mean it is a REALLY SLOW BURN. trust me, it's gonna take a long time getting there.

* * *

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?" Amalia had instantly become cold, like she was currently experiencing a separate reality from the eyes of someone else. "Did you just say what I think you said? That you're the _king_ of Team Plasma?"

"…Yes?"

Amalia clenched her fists so tight her knuckles cracked. "You are so… _lucky_ … we're in a semi-public place right now… otherwise I don't think I'd be able to stop myself from beating your ass," she growled.

She took a deep breath. "To think… you played me like a fucking fool. And I let you! I'm so stupid! I was so stupid not to realize it!"

She continued: "Instead, I thought: 'Oh no, there's no way he's with them, he's too nice.' Well aren't I a great judge of character!"

To this point, N had sat quietly, shocked by her reaction. "Let me- no let me explain –"

"What's there to explain? You're the leader of a _CULT._ Not just that – you're their fucking Messiah! Tell me, what possible explanation can make that OK?"

"I –"

"Are you even aware of what Team Plasma has done in the past? Of the things they're currently doing?"

He didn't get a chance to answer. The ride had come to a halt, and the attendants were letting people out car by car. When their car finally reached the bottom, Amalia pushed past N and into the open area. She felt humiliated, it had been so obvious. How could she let herself fall for it? Was his naïve personality all an act, too? How could she be so stupid?

"Amalia, wait!"

"Shut up! I don't even want to _look_ at you!" she hissed.

N looked taken aback by her statement, but quickly stood up straight and put on a neutral facial expression. "I'm going to surpass the champion so I can liberate pokémon from human control. That is the future I must make happen."

Amalia didn't reply. He could keep talking to the back of her head all he wanted to. She refused to dignify any of it with a response.

"If you disagree with me…" He swallowed, and continued with a shaky voice: "Then compete in the Unova championships, collect all the badges, follow the path your friend Cheren is taking. Then, you can stand against me!"

She couldn't control her anger any longer. "Really? You think that's going to work?" she said in the most snide, sarcastic voice she could manage. "I hate to be the one to tell you this, N, but you're not even remotely good at pokémon battling."

N glared at her.

So she'd hit a nerve, huh? She continued: "You're too sensitive, too worried, and too fucking _scared_ to ask anything potentially drastic of your pokémon. You think you can accomplish your goals without hurting anyone. You think you can just wave a magic wand and have everyone automatically agree with you!"

He looked actively pissed off now. Good.

She was being vicious, and it felt good. "If you actually want to get anything done, you'll have to harden your heart. You're too afraid of even the possibility that you could put your pokémon in danger. You don't want to take that risk, do you?"

With every word, N looked increasingly more agitated. He looked like he was about to cry. Good! She hoped her words were cutting him deep.

He scowled at her, tears beginning to form in his eyes. "Sh-shut up! I've lived my life around pokémon scarred and hurt by cruel trainers like _you,_ Amalia."

She narrowed her eyes.

He continued: "Ghetsis was right, all humans are –"

"Ghetsis Harmonia. The governor of New York," Amalia stated.

"Um, yes," he said, his train of thought interrupted by Amalia's words.

"So he's a part of this too, then?" She gasped as a new realization hit her: "Oh my god, he's your dad!"

N's brows furrowed. "…Yes?"

Amalia laughed. What was so funny? She couldn't tell whether it was a real laugh or just fake, spiteful laughter, but nonetheless she stumbled backwards and fell to her knees she was laughing so hard.

"Are you OK?" asked N, who was now some combination of confused, pissed off, and concerned.

Amalia stood back up, suddenly serious. "Why don't you put your skills to the test, huh? You've never won against me, so let's see if you have the fortitude to actually succeed."

"Fine," he said.

Amalia called out her first pokémon. Hecate immediately went into her full threat display, before N had even sent out his own pokémon. He briefly looked shocked by this, but that look was replaced with determination as he released his first pokémon, a sandile.

Hecate knew exactly what to do. With a wave of Amalia's hand, the ariados leapt into action, immediately trying to immobilize the sandile with her webbing. It dodged her attempts, kicking up dirt at her and baring its teeth. This didn't stop Hecate, and she slammed headfirst into the sandile, impaling it with the spike on her head and flipping it over on its back.

There was blood on the ground, and the sandile thrashed wildly at Hecate, trying to dislodge her. This only served to worsen the injury, as more blood spurt out with each of the sandile's desperate movements. Hecate held fast, bits and pieces of flesh clinging to and dripping from her face.

Amalia gasped. "Hecate, _no!_ That's not what we do! _Stop it!_ "

N looked nauseated. All color had drained from his face and he gagged a couple times. His hands shook as he recalled his pokémon. "Your Ariados is angry…"

"What?"

"She's angry at me?" His voice was tinged with apprehension and fear. "…She's mad at me because I made you mad."

N contemplated his words. "Your Ariados… Hecate would do anything for you." He almost seemed troubled by this.

"Yeah, of course she would. I'd do the same for her."

"I've gotta go," he said, walking off.

"What? We aren't even done!" she yelled after him. "Come back so I can beat your ass!"

When it was clear he wasn't going to turn around, she yelled a final "Fuck you!" after which she was kicked out of the amusement park.

"There are children here, lady," said the security guard who escorted her out. "If you wanna act like that, go back to the bar." She wasn't particularly appreciative of the implication she was drunk, but she wasn't going to argue.

Amalia went back to her room at the pokémon center and threw her backpack onto the bed. She then sat down in the desk chair and massaged her forehead. She could feel a headache coming on.

She was still so angry. He'd lied to her, made her feel like an idiot, made her feel _used_ and most importantly he was the leader of a terroristic cult that was hell-bent on ruining society. It all made sense now. His 'business' in Nacrene, his mannerisms and beliefs, whenever he had to leave early because of some obligation. It was so obvious! Amalia was an idiot. And here she thought N was the naïve one, when she had blindly trusted him and ignored the facts that were right in front of her!

And Ghetsis… she admittedly wasn't surprised, but it was still an unpleasant realization. That someone who held public office was really behind all this… well, it was kind of disturbing. Were there other politicians involved as well? Was this some sort of Da Vinci Code-level conspiracy? Would Amalia need to team up with a beautiful woman to find the hidden message in a famous painting?

Well, if the hidden message is "Team Plasma is bad news," then no. The subtext was all there. But… why?

Amalia sighed and unpacked her backpack. Ghetsis had been married. Ghetsis had a child. That child was N. Ghetsis Harmonia was a public figure who had only held minor positions until 1987, where he gained popularity due to his strict response to the attempted subway bombings by… _OH._ Huh, well that was interesting. So if he was one of the 'real' leaders of Team Plasma, who'd escaped notice during the investigation and subsequent trial, then who was A.G., the witness who protected him? She obviously had inside knowledge of Plasma hierarchies, and knew enough about its workings that she could convince the judge that those small-scale officers were really the top brass.

Amalia groaned. This was way too much to be thinking about at – she looked over at the clock – 1:30 in the morning.

After she'd gotten ready, she lay in bed, eyes open. Had she been too mean to N? Sure, he'd kinda deserved it, but now that the adrenaline had worn off she felt kind of bad about it. Not to mention what Hecate had done to that poor sandile… Amalia had never seen her so vicious and it was kind of scary. She hoped the sandile would be okay. But Hecate had been trying to protect Amalia. Hecate, who saw N as a threat…

Still, Amalia couldn't deny that sense of sick satisfaction she'd gotten upon seeing the hurt look on N's face… it was disconcerting, and thinking about it made her feel gross. That wasn't the kind of person she wanted to be. But she also didn't want to be the kind of person that just let people walk all over her. There was a fine line between being a doormat and slamming the door in someone's face, and Amalia had to draw it somewhere.

Amalia spent the next week mostly trying to avoid N but running into him anyway. He'd tried to talk to her a couple times, but she just stared at him coldly until he got the message and went away. It didn't stop her from feeling that twinge of pity and guilt when he'd walk away dejectedly. He was still the same naïve, socially unaware boy she knew before. Despite it all, she still felt oddly protective of that, even if, as she now knew, he was a delusional cultist. Eventually, he stopped trying to talk to her entirely, and would pretend not to look at her whenever they happened to occupy the same room. Cheren and Bianca had commented on it on two separate occasions, and to be honest, it wasn't really something Amalia wanted to talk about. She knew eventually she'd have to tell the both of them about N being the 'king' of Team Plasma. She'd put that off for another day.

It wasn't long after when she encountered Francesca in the library, in the very section Amalia liked to sit in. She appeared to be searching for something.

"Francesca, you were right," said Amalia.

"Of course I was," she replied, turning over all the cushions on one of the study couches. "About what?"

"It doesn't matter. What are you doing?"

"If you can't tell, I'm looking for something," she replied.

"What are you looking for? Maybe I could help."

"It's nothing you need to know about. It belonged to my father, so I need to find it."

"Ok," said Amalia. "Are we going back to the cold storage any time soon?"

"Have you gotten together a group?"

"I didn't know I was supposed to. Why haven't you, then?"

"I don't have any friends," Francesca replied matter-of-factly.

For some reason, Amalia wasn't surprised. "Why would we need a group anyway?"

"Human shields," she said, "Actually, I just think it'd be easier if we could spread out. Once we're spotted by any of those guards, the whole place is going to be on high alert, so we won't be able to get as much information. This way, we can cover more ground and eliminate threats more easily."

"You talk like you're some sort of assassin," Amalia observed.

"I've played a lot of Assassin's Creed," she said. "Anyway, they may have weapons, but I don't think they're currently using them. We should probably be safe."

That wasn't very reassuring. Amalia left the library prematurely, not really wanting to hang around while Francesca moved all of the furniture and made rude comments.

"Um, I got a call from you guys…" Amalia stood at the pokémon center's veterinary counter while the nurse gazed at her apathetically. "uh… I'm the owner of the deino?"

"Oh," the nurse said, "you should have said that earlier." She rifled through a couple folders and clicked through a couple computer screens, "the doctor'll be out in a couple seconds. You can sit down if you like."

Amalia took a seat and waited for a couple minutes. A doctor came out and approached her.

"After treatment, we usually walk the pokémon out to meet its trainer. But with this – ah, let's just say she doesn't like people much. You should let her get used to you before you try to make her do anything," he said.

"Oh, ok."

"You've uh, got your license for her, huh?" Amalia nodded. "Okay, well uh, you're good to go," he said.

Deino were blind, so Amalia doubted whether the one she rescued would even recognize her, especially considering the condition she'd been found in. There was no real way to know how long the deino had been inside the cold storage… how long it had been since it had fresh air or even interacted with another pokémon… that was kind of sad to think about.

Amalia walked to a nearby park and let Dio and Selphy out of their pokéballs. "Be nice," she said to them, "she doesn't have a name yet, but she's scared and going to be your new friend."

She fished the deino's pokéball out of her dress' pockets and sent it out. The deino stood in the grass, cautiously lifting her feet and putting them back down. A few seconds passed and she seemed to realize the grass was harmless, beginning to jump and bleat happily.

Tiamat (that's what the deino's name was, Amalia decided) pranced over to Dio and Selphy, sniffing them out. She playfully headbutted the scolipede, and the two larger pokémon began playfighting with her; Selphy making little gusts of air with her wings, and Dio pretending to be hurt by the little dragon's attacks.

Amalia sighed and began composing a text message to Burgh and Cheren. If Francesca wanted to have a group, then fine. She wasn't exactly pleasant to work with, but she had a vendetta against Team Plasma, and she was willing to cooperate. She also had a feeling that Francesca knew more about Team Plasma than she let on. It was possible her knowledge extended beyond what was readily available, and if Amalia could learn new information about Team Plasma from her, then so be it.

"Did you ever find what you were looking for?" Amalia asked her when they met up to go back to the cold storage.

Francesca ignored her question.

"So… what are we doing anyway?" asked Burgh, "do we have any sort of plan?"

"We're going to shut down Team Plasma's operations in Driftveil," Francesca answered.

Hector, who was sitting in the driver's seat, turned around and raised his hand. "Um… I've got a question," he said, "why can't we just… call the police? Can't they handle it?"

"We don't have any evidence besides what we've seen," answered Francesca.

"It's not nearly as exciting," answered Cheren. "And taking down a part of Team Plasma sounds like a good way to prove our strength, don't you think?"

"Agreed," said Francesca. "Team Plasma is really set in its ways. Being raided by a bunch of random kids would really knock them off-kilter. They'd be humiliated!" She smiled.

"So do we have, like, a layout of the building? Or…" Burgh trailed off, gauging the others' expressions. "… we don't, do we? So we don't even know where the fuck we're going, huh?"

"Um, yeah, we're going into the cold storage, weren't you paying attention?" said Hector.

"Are we serious? Are we seriously gonna do this without any sort of plan? Seriously?" said Burgh as they pulled into the parking lot at the cold storage.

Hector shifted the car into park. "That's what it looks like," he said, "for serious."

The building was just as unguarded as it was the first time. The five of them stood by the car.

"Well, nothing seems to be going on, looks like we can head home guys," Burgh declared.

"No," said Amalia, "they're keeping a bunch of stolen pokémon here, we can't just leave."

"We probably shouldn't just be standing here," Cheren suggested. While they didn't know too much about the warehouse's layout, they did know that there were at least two entrances. There was the front entrance, near the main parking lot, and a side entrance, which opened up near the loading dock. "Ugh… this is probably going to sound really Scooby-Doo-ish, but it'd probably be a good idea for us to split up. A large group would be too conspicuous."

"Jinkies," Hector monotoned.

" _I_ want to be Velma," said Francesca, who narrowed her eyes at Hector.

Cheren sighed. "Okay, listen, since none of you can take this seriously, I'll decide. Hector, you and Burgh can take the, uh, front entrance. The one over there." He pointed at the door closest to them. "Just focus on not getting caught, or something. I don't know. The rest of us will go through the truck bay."

"What's with the arbitrary groupings?" Amalia asked as they walked around the side of the building. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I love Burgh, but he's a scaredy-cat. And Hector's, well, himself."

"Listen Amalia, it's a time-tested method," he explained as they entered the building. The interior of the warehouse would basically be an open space if it weren't for the numerous shipping containers that acted as walls. "In the original Scooby-Doo cartoon, the gang would usually split up with Fred, Velma, and Daphne in one group and Shaggy and Scooby in another. It just works."

So according to Cheren, Hector was Scooby… she couldn't really disagree with that… it was pretty accurate…

Francesca shushed them. Just up ahead, Amalia could hear the sound of two people talking.

"I dunno," said one voice, "she hasn't been returning my calls and she's been acting distant… I just wish I knew what I did wrong this time, y'know?"

"Listen man, I've been telling you to get rid of her since you two started dating. She's not good for you. She gets off on stringing you along like that. Every other week there's some new thing that you've done to piss her off, and then she acts all passive-aggressive when you don't know why she's mad. It's really not healthy."

"Yeah, but…"

She couldn't believe they were standing there listening to two Team Plasma members talk about their love lives. This was ridiculous. The two guards were facing the opposite direction so Francesca, Amalia, and Cheren snuck past them.

"There's going to be an office somewhere," said Francesca. "Most warehouses have at least some sort of administrative area."

And there it was, their unspoken purpose in being here. An office would probably have a computer, a file cabinet, _something_ that contained important documents or paperwork. Who knew what kind of information they could get searching through one of Team Plasma's offices.

The office wasn't very hard to find. It was also remarkably unguarded. "They've always been arrogant," Francesca mumbled, "they think so lowly of outsiders that it never occurs to them anyone could be smart enough to get this far." The office had a window, from which the manager would be able to see out into the building. Francesca brandished a key card and approached the office door.

"Where did you get that?" Cheren questioned.

"I stole it." She held it out underneath the door handle, which beeped and came unlocked. There was no one inside, and the three of them slipped in quietly.

"Just go through any file you can find," said Francesca, who keyed in the password to the desktop. "Can you _believe_ they use the same password for everything? In the year of our lord twenty-eleven! Shouldn't they know better?" she thought aloud. "God! It's so fuckin' cliché."

"You seem to feel very strongly about this," Cheren observed. He was looking through several maps and blueprints, using his phone to take pictures.

"It's just… it's so _embarrassing!_ " Francesca continued. "They're a secretive organization and they don't even have the sense to learn about cyber security! I feel embarrassed for them!"

Amalia was rifling through a file cabinet, which didn't actually contain anything interesting. It was mostly payroll and shopping receipts. Who the hell needed to buy sixteen lean cuisines in one Wal-Mart trip? There wasn't even a microwave in here, how were they gonna eat them?

As she moved aside the thousandth receipt for margarita mix (and not even the decent kind!) she spotted something different. It was a thick, crudely-bound manifesto of sorts. The cover page had a title that was written in vaguely semitic-looking text.

The office door opened. Startled, Amalia shoved the manuscript into her bag.

"What are you doing?" said the man in a purple coat, "Who the hell are you?"

"You should know who I am," said Francesca, flipping her braids over her shoulder.

"Um, no I don't," the man said. He was quiet for a second, then his eyes widened in recognition. "Wait… you're…"

"You know why I'm here! Cassius Zinzolin, I will fucking _end you!_ " she yelled, grabbing a pokéball. An aurorus emerged into the small room, crushing the desk beneath its weight.

He leaned his head out the door frame. "HEY, A LITTLE HELP HERE?" he shouted into the warehouse.

The aurorus lunged at Zinzolin, its powerful tail shattering the office's windows and splintering the door frame. Zinzolin dodged, and several Plasma grunts filed into the room.

"Finally!" he shouted, and the grunts let out their own pokémon. Amalia and Cheren did the same.

"Do you really think you can interfere with our plans? Do you really think you can do anything?" said Zinzolin. "That's funny! That's really funny. Interesting, actually."

Amalia returned her focus to her own battle. The plasma grunt ahead of her, a lady with a familiar shrill voice, commanded her liepard to attack, and it lunged claws-first at Dio. The cat's claws failed to pierce his exoskeleton, and the liepard leapt back and hissed. Dio hit the ground with his tail and then swung his body to knock the liepard off-balance. Then, while the cat was still trying to regain its footing, Dio slammed it with megahorn.

"You want to stand against us? You want to oppose our will to power?" Amalia heard Zinzolin saying, "Your adherence to the status quo will get you nowhere. If your will to power is to stand in opposition of ours, then so be it."

Cheren and Francesca were standing back-to-back, their pokémon guarding one another. Amalia dodged a flurry of soda cans thrown by an enemy trubbish and sent Selphy to incapacitate it. Another grunt's watchdog lunged towards her, and –

"RECALL YOUR POKÉMON NOW!" came a voice.

Everyone stopped what they were doing. A police officer was standing on a table and speaking through a megaphone. There were numerous other officers surrounding the destroyed office.

"STOP FIGHTING AND RECALL YOUR POKÉMON. PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!"

The cops rounded up the Team Plasma members and led them away. Several officers stayed behind to question the three of them. Why were they here, what were they doing, et cetera et cetera. The cops gave them a stern talking-to about safety and left.

Hector and Burgh had shown up at the same time as the cops, and stood off to the side.

"See? I _told_ you," gloated Hector.

"I'm honestly surprised," said Burgh. "I can't believe they didn't arrest you."

"Why would they do that? I've got such an award-winning personality, I would just charm my way outta it…"

"Probably the only reason they didn't is because you were with me," Burgh sighed.

"Where have you been?" Amalia asked them.

"Well, we uh, decided to go back to the car and y'know, hang out."

"Ughhhhhh," said Burgh, "shut _up!_ "

"You guys were taking a long time, and he was like 'oh no, what if something's happened and they're all DEAD,' and I was like 'chill.'"

"So you guys didn't even set foot inside the building?" Cheren asked.

"Well yeah, we did. But it was really cold."

"Why did we even invite you?"

"Uh, we did solve the problem, so you might as well be a little bit grateful," Burgh pointed out.

They headed back to Nimbasa. Amalia stared at the ceiling of her room. She'd done everything she needed to do in this city. Amalia looked at where Tiamat slept, with Dio curled around her protectively. She should probably start packing up to head off to Driftveil for good. She'd have to defeat the six-armed gun-slinging gym leader, Clay, if she wanted to be able to qualify for the championships.

She checked her phone. She had a new message from her mom. "They're going to remove dad from life support soon. They've just gotta get all the transplant surgeries lined up for his organs. We need to look on the bright side, he'll be saving so many lives…"

Why did none of those lives truly matter to Amalia?

* * *

i have a mental outline of the next three chapters and my fingers really ache. i hate working retail and I want to die. Please, god, give me a 9 to 5 job, i would literally do anything if it means im not selling. either put me in a cubicle or take me out back and shoot me

Footnotes:

1) sorry folks but there was literally no way amalia was going to take that news well. her reaction is perfectly valid as well. sometimes, in the heat of the moment, when you realize you've been strung along and this person you trusted is actually someone completely different, you lash out in any way you can, especially if that means making others hurt. esp. when its something that makes you feel like youve been used or violated or humiliated. it's not necessarily a healthy response, but its a natural one. doesn't mean amalia shouldn't try to work on that.  
The thing is, though, you have to understand, this is coming from someone who has actually BEEN used, BEEN strung along. it is an insidious feeling, that even long after you're done with the person, you feel filthy, you feel like you've betrayed yourself. Even just small instances of it can kill your self-esteem. Amalia is shaken, because, while she may be depressed, she's still pretty confident in herself. (depression does not necessarily equal bad self-esteem!)

2) it was mentioned in the last chapter that 'ariados are only belligerent if they feel threatened or they feel like a member of their social/familial group has been threatened. Amalia is family to Hecate, which is why Hecate responded in an extremely aggressive manner, bc she could read Amalia's emotional state.

3) N is used to pokemon being weary of him, since when he was a kid he was mostly exposed to injured and traumatized pokemon. However, I don't think he's ever experienced a pokemon being angry specifically at him, for something he has done. Hecate's reaction was so vicious, so violent and _pure_ that yeah, he was taken aback. He can understand pokemon, so he could also hear hecate's anger and malice - which were directed solely at HIM. He heard it in its pure, undiluted form, and yeah, that scared him. ALSO, Hecate's actions were done out of her devotion to Amalia, which is so contrary to N's belief system. That also scared him, a little bit.

4) i know the seven sages are based off eastern philosophy but I honestly Don't Care because I love Nietzsche and don't know shit about eastern philosophy anyway. I know a lot about western philosophy and ethics and stuff, so that's what I'm going with.

5) Gen 6 pokemon are fair game and I'll include them if i wanna.


	9. Black and White

content warnings: existential bullshit, death of family members.

the story from here on out might get pretty dark in some places. i will keep putting warnings in front of the chapters. if you need something warned for, please let me know.

* * *

It had been a long night. First, Tiamat had thrown up all over Amalia's room because she'd somehow managed to eat half a tennis ball in the park that day (and she would've eaten the whole thing, had Amalia not stopped her). Then when that was all cleaned up and Amalia was ready to go to sleep, the guy renting the room next to her had his girlfriend over. She was a screamer, and the walls at the motel were very, very thin, so Amalia was treated to what she could only describe as a pornographic shitshow that she could have done without hearing.

The morning didn't seem like it was turning out any better. At the motel's continental breakfast, she had acquired the most beautiful, most perfect piece of toast she'd ever seen… and it fell on the floor, butter-side down. Not even the five-second rule could help her, for when she picked it up there were little pieces of lint and hair clinging to it. She hadn't even done anything to deserve this kind of cosmic injustice. No kind, loving god would ever allow such a horrible thing to happen.

She threw the dirty toast away and grabbed a blueberry bagel instead. Amalia set it down at the table where Bianca was sitting, along with the newspaper and Oh, isn't that great? Cassius Zinzolin and his Team Plasma subordinates weren't being charged with any crimes due to "insufficient evidence." Ha ha, wow. Apparently having entire crates filled with stolen pokémon wasn't enough to indict several members of a known terrorist organization. She crumpled up the paper.

"Hey!" protested Bianca, "I haven't read that section yet!"

"Oh, sorry." Amalia smoothed the paper back out and gave it to Bianca.

"Never mind," said Bianca a few minutes later as she re-crumpled the paper.

"Yeah I know, it's ridiculous."

"It's scary, Munro could've ended up in there… I feel really bad for all those pokémon. At least now they're going to be taken care of."

At the gym, Amalia was partnered with a really annoying guy who only talked about himself and motorcycles.

"I'm a heartbreaker… my name… Charles…" he said.

"Um, I don't think I got that? What was your name again?"

"My name is Charles… I'm a heartbreaker."

"Wait so what is it you do again?"

"I'm a heartbreaker."

"You break… bones?"

A couple people nearby broke into laughter. She and Bianca left early that day.

"God, what's gotten into you? You've been such an asshole lately," said Bianca. "Like, more than you usually are."

"I mean, you're starting to act like your brother," Bianca continued, "you're being an asshole just for the sake of being an asshole. Is something wrong?"

It was a beautiful autumn day. She and Bianca were watching a battle between Francesca and an attractive tough guy with a mohawk called Neal Jackson. His arbok was currently wrapped tightly around Francesca's struggling hawlucha. The arbok loosened its grip, readying itself to strike, and the hawlucha used this opening to free itself. It grabbed the arbok's head as it took to the sky, reversed its trajectory, and slammed the arbok into the ground.

"I'm fucking gay," Amalia heard Bianca whisper. Amalia had no comment.

N had been right about one thing; Francesca _was_ cruel, to an extent, and if Bianca's reaction a moment ago held any weight, it looked damn good on her. She reveled in displays of power, and especially enjoyed downplaying her abilities and only revealing them at the last second, once the opponent assumed they were winning. Despite that, her pokémon still seemed to respect her. It was like they enjoyed it too. Still, Amalia wondered about the effectiveness of such a tactic. Eventually, people would wisen up; catch Francesca off-guard, and then what?

It wasn't like she fought _all_ her battles like that. It was just enough of them that it could be identified as a definite pattern. Amalia hoped Francesca had a back-up plan for when karma finally came back around.

"That was fun," said Francesca as they stood in line at a fast food restaurant.

"Well I mean, _you won_ ," Amalia replied.

Francesca smiled and stretched her arms. "Winning is always fun." She was in a good mood today, and looked it. They ordered their food and sat down at one of the outside tables.

"I mean," she said, "what's the point if you don't win?"

"Are you gonna be going to Mistralton soon? You've already beaten Clay…" asked Bianca.

"I don't need to go there right now." Francesca shrugged. "The deadline for the championships is in January, so there's plenty of time."

"Oh," said Bianca.

Francesca was a lot like Cheren, Amalia realized. They were both extremely competitive, both were kind of rude, and both of them wore glasses (though Francesca sometimes opted to wear contacts instead). Both of them were kind of Darwinistic in their worldviews, believing that strength and power alone placed them at the apex of society. They also really loved to win.

Francesca seemed obsessed with putting out an image of perfection. Amalia had literally never seen her look bad. From her shoes to the ends of her hair, nothing ever seemed to be out of place. It was a little intimidating, and Amalia wondered if it was somehow related to Francesca's trouble in making friends. After a period where Francesca had worn her hair natural, she was back to her braids again, this time having a sort of red-yellow ombre braided in towards the ends. She often wore them pinned up in a topknot or pulled back, and sometimes Amalia wondered how long it took to braid all her hair up like that.

They parted ways with Francesca and took a walk through Driftveil's bustling marketplace.

"Isn't your birthday coming up, Amalia?" Bianca asked.

"Oh yeah," she answered, "end of September…"

"Did you forget your own birthday?" Bianca looked at her curiously. "Something IS wrong, something is definitely wrong. Are you okay?"

Amalia was not OK.

This would be her first birthday without her dad. It seemed very unreal to her; that time could keep moving when someone who was so integral to her life was no longer there. There was so much emphasis placed on human life, and for what? When people died, so what? The world did not stop. There were billions of people in the world. People were constantly dying and being replaced by new life. It was just the way things happened, right? A single person's death affects no one on the other side of the globe.

Amalia was struck with a deep sense of dread. In the grand scheme of things, her life didn't matter. Hector's life didn't matter, Cheren and Bianca's lives didn't matter. Because time was infinite, and no matter what happened or who died, the universe would continue on.

She lay awake in her bed back in Nuvema thinking about this. And honestly, she really just wanted to sleep, collect herself the night before the funeral. Instead, it was 12:30 AM and she was having some sort of teenage existential crisis. Living from day-to-day was hazy and all Amalia really wanted to do was go to sleep and avoid reality for a long, long time. If she never woke up, she'd never have to take responsibility, right?

The next morning, she stood in her childhood room and stared at her reflection. It felt almost mechanical, applying her makeup and getting dressed, like she was merely acting out the motions rather than participating in reality.

She didn't really pay attention to the service, and she read her eulogy with all the charm and charisma of someone who wasn't emotionally detached and angry at the world. She drifted in and out for the rest of the service, not really paying attention but not really thinking about anything in particular. She didn't feel sad at all. She didn't feel anything. Afterwards, people came and offered their condolences to her and her family, and Amalia pretended to appreciate it.

It was strange how nobody mentioned her father's cause of death. It was amazing the number of people who told Amalia that "he was in a better place now." Better than what? Being alive and spending time with his children? Was "going to be with the Lord" really more important than watching one's kids grow up and being there for them? Amalia looked over at Hector, who appeared to be stoned out of his mind. She wished she could've had the same foresight. She stood, speaking to the other people who'd come, with her mind partially in another reality.

The accident weighed heavily on her mind in the days thereafter. What if her dad had been just five minutes later in leaving home? What if he never needed to attend that research conference in the first place?

He'd been so excited about it. After many years of studying social behaviors within communities of ariados, peer review after peer review after peer review, he would be presenting his finalized research to other scientists in his field, at an event in Castelia. He'd been working towards this moment for years, all the while teaching classes at the university and working on smaller research projects in the meantime. It was all he talked about in the weeks leading up to the event. That everything had to end the way it did… it was just so unfair.

Amalia missed her dad, and her only consolation was that the cab driver that hit him had died on the spot.

She thought about the cab driver a lot, actually. The taxi driver had apparently been drunk, or something, and lost control of his vehicle and swerved into the oncoming lane. The driver had died at the scene, but Amalia's father was still alive and rapidly losing consciousness. He was taken to the hospital and pumped full of barbiturates, with the hope that doing so would allow his brain to recover.

The taxi supposedly had a passenger, but whoever it was had left the scene. The lucky bastard probably walked away unscathed.

Amalia sighed and lay down on her bed. She could feel that familiar dread creeping over her and clutching at her heart, and the more she dwelled on it, the more she feared what tomorrow would bring. It wasn't something she could ignore; the feeling crowded her chest and restricted her breathing. She knew she had friends and family and people who loved her, but the funeral had left her feeling isolated and so, so alone. Amalia let Hecate out of her pokéball, and Hecate sat next to her on the bed for a while until she calmed down. Amalia spent the rest of the night listening to the comforting hissing noise Hecate made as she roamed about the room.

It was late in the evening when Amalia boarded the bus going to Driftveil. It was relatively uncrowded at this time of day, so she found a seat with ease. Several minutes into the ride, the two people who'd sat near her started talking, and Amalia quickly found out that they had no issues with carrying on a private argument in mass transit. They were a woman and an older man, speaking in what they probably thought were hushed tones but that Amalia could hear from two rows up.

"Listen, you have to stop this!" said the woman, "of all the sages, you're –"

"I am but one man, what power have I to alter the path God has set for us?" the man answered.

"This isn't –"

"Please, just trust in His power. We are doing God's work, in alignment with the words of our…"

"Ugh! This has nothing to do with God, and you know it! You have to talk him out of it!" she pleaded.

The man lowered his voice to a whisper. "I understand your concerns, trust me… but there's nothing I can do."

"I don't know, talk to him! He might listen to you!"

"Listen, Cordy, I don't know how you got here, but you should return to the compound immediately. It would be bad if anyone noticed you were gone."

Amalia slouched down in her seat and tried to tune out their conversation for the rest of the ride. When that didn't work, she made a show of passive-aggressively covering her ears just to subtly let them know they needed to turn it down just a notch, maybe.

Even in Driftveil, she couldn't escape the awkward condolences and sorry-for-your-losses. One day Francesca mentioned off-handedly that she was sorry that Amalia's dad died, and "if it makes you feel any better, my dad's dead too," and that most certainly did _not_ make Amalia feel better! In fact, out of all the messages of sympathy she'd gotten, this was the only one that managed to make her feel worse!

She was about to scream her frustrations into the emptiness of her motel room when her phone buzzed.

"Amalia I'm fucked," said Hector over the phone. "I am so, so fucked."

"What is it this time?"

"Mom found out I've been skipping school. I am _so_ fucked!"

"Wait, you've been _what?_ What the fuck, Hector."

"I thought you knew? School started back in August. But like, it's not like I'm going to college _anyway_ , so it doesn't really matter. I have my photography business."

"Hector, in order to have a photography business, you have to actually be good at it."

"Hey, fuck you," he said, "I _am_ actually good at it. That's the last time I call you for support."

Clay didn't have six arms, and he only carried one handgun. He talked with a deep Texas drawl and Amalia would've thought he was born there if someone hadn't told her otherwise. He was also rich. He'd been in Driftveil for eight years after getting bored of Texas oil, and he was living proof that what everyone said about Texas was true. Dio toppled his first two pokémon with ease, but struggled against his excadrill, at which point Elodea took over.

"Y'all did a good job rounding up Team Plasma a while back," Clay told her after she won, "its a shame they got out of it so easily. If I ever see them here again, I have half a mind to shoot 'em on sight."

On her way out of the Gym, she picked up a brochure for some hiking trip organized by Clay. It wasn't something she'd normally do, but she felt it would help to get her mind off things. Who knows, maybe hanging around in nature and vigorous physical activity would make her feel better? Amalia hadn't been hiking in a while, at least not big-time hiking. Not since they went to the Grand Canyon a couple years back. This would be a nice change of pace.

There were a lot more people than Amalia thought there would be, and she had no idea why. Don't most people hate exercise? After they stopped for the second time in fifteen minutes and Clay pointed at a boring-ass greenish rock and asked the group about metamorphism, Amalia realized why. This wasn't just a regular old hike she was at, Amalia had crashed some college's geology field trip!

"Uh, subduction?" said a male student with a scruffy beard. Clay motioned for the student to continue. "The protolith is, uh… probably some type of rock?"

"Ha ha," said Clay sarcastically, "I don't know where you've been, but it ain't subduction. Close though." Everyone who was in the class split up into groups to talk about rocks, while everyone who was not in the class just stood around awkwardly, wondering why something that was obviously a class field trip was advertised as anything else.

"We're doin' it. We're droppin' acid at Chargestone Cave," said one girl, who took out a small dropper bottle and placed a couple drops of liquid onto a piece of the rock while other students stood around her.

"CALCITE IS PRESENT," an overenthusiastic geology major shouted, and Amalia decided she should just go on ahead into the cave and wait for the group there.

Amalia had been on a tour of the cave only once, back when she was a little girl. She barely remembered any of it, except that Hector had been crying the whole time. A galvantula skittered across the pathway, her young clinging to her back. Amalia continued to explore the inside of the cave's entrance. Some of the rocks emitted a faint, bluish glow, which cast the whole cave in a surreal but calming light. The only sounds she could hear were the shuffling of the pokémon that lived there, interrupted by the geology students' faint shouts of phrases like "greenschist to amphibolite facies," or "it's more blue than green so shouldn't it be a blueschist?" or "shut the fuck up Sarah! You don't know shit! Blueschist is oceanic!"

She figured she should stop to let them catch up. She felt a rush of wind, and someone was standing right behind her.

"…Come with us," they said, grabbing her arms. They put a hand over her mouth just as she was about to scream.

"Be quiet."

There were two someones, and they were both dressed like an eighth-grade Naruto phase taken too far. Any other situation, and Amalia would probably be laughing at them. "We won't hurt you," one of them said.

"What do you want?" she demanded. They lead her deeper into the cave, saying nothing.

Amalia noticed him from several meters away, as he sat bathed in the dim blue light, entertaining a joltik that had crawled up his arm. "Oh," she said distastefully, "it's you."

"Thank you," he addressed the men at either side of her, and they disappeared into the shadows.

"Those two were members of the Shadow Triad," N informed her, "they were brought in by Ghetsis."

"If they're a triad then why're there only two of them?" she said back.

"I never said that was all of them," he replied forcefully, distracted by her stupid question.

N took a deep breath. "When I told Ghetsis about you, he had the Shadow Triad investigate you and your friends."

"You _what?"_ said Amalia, indignation bleeding into her tone.

"Cheren seeks the ideal of strength, while Bianca has learned the hard truth that not everyone can succeed…"

 _"Excuse me?"_

Amalia was fuming. He had his lackeys stalk her, he insulted her friends… she didn't see how she had ever tolerated him. That fucker! That absolute piece of shit!

"But you, Amalia… you're different…" he trailed off before starting to speak again: "I… really like it here. It's nice. The earth, electricity, pokémon… it's all interconnected here. It's an ideal place… or it would be, if people weren't around…"

Amalia stood silently with her arms crossed, her gaze level and unerring. It was hard to tell in the cave's lighting, but N appeared to be slightly intimidated by her stance.

He continued: "You have been chosen, you know. Does that surprise you?"

"Chosen by what?" she said without thinking, "your libido?"

It was N's turn to look indignant.

She continued: "I mean, it's not like you're good at hiding it, you're not exactly subtle when you stare at my ass!"

Even in the dim light, it was completely obvious how red his face was. "I don't – that's not –" he spluttered.

"I'm right, huh?"

"Ugh, just… fuck you, Amalia!"

He stormed off. "Yeah, I bet you'd like to!" she shouted after him.

Amalia continued her trek through the cave, feeling very smug. At the rate she was going, she could probably be in Mistralton before dark. Not even the ten-plus Team Plasma nutjobs that got in her way managed to slow her down. Wait…maybe she should try to rejoin the group from earlier? After all, it wasn't as if she knew which way she needed to go… Well, she'd just ask the next person she ran into. There appeared to be someone up ahead.

"Hey, do you know where the exit is?" she said as she approached them.

"Huh?" The person turned around. It was one of those creepy ninja guys from earlier. Two more of them instantly appeared on either side of her.

"I'm just joking, I know where the exit is, you don't have to tell me," she added as they guided her in a certain direction. "Like, really, it was a joke, I'm fine on my own."

"Fine then, we won't show you where to go," one of them said petulantly.

"It's like… just down that way," said another one.

Amalia kept going, seeing a light up ahead. Shit, they were right, the exit really _was_ there… and so was N.

"Amalia, you were right in what you said –"

"What, about how you have a thing for me?"

"NO, no!" he stammered, getting flustered again. "I meant what you said at the Ferris Wheel, okay? You were right, I… I really am afraid."

"Hey, um, about that, I'm sor–"

"I am afraid of putting my pokémon in danger. But then… what kind of world do we live in, where we must do such things? Where we must put pokémon through hardship for our own selfish desires?

"It's not a world I want to be a part of," he concluded. "So many different ideas muddled together… it's a big grey mess. What's wrong and what's right? Does anyone even know, in a world where something can be right one minute and wrong the next?

"I've said this before, but… I envision a world where pokémon and humans exist separately, as separate as black from white. As long as they associate with humans, pokémon will never become perfect beings. That is _my_ dream. Amalia… is there anything you dream of accomplishing?"

"Uh… I haven't really thought about it lately… maybe?" she replied.

"Oh," he said, slightly taken aback. "Well, maybe we can try to figure out what your dream might be?" He sent out a boldore. He wanted a fight.

After his joltik took out Elodea, Amalia fumbled around for Selphy's pokéball, grabbing it and sending out... Tiamat, apparently. Oops. Amalia had never really battled with Tiamat, but she couldn't really back out now.

The joltik was much faster than Amalia's pokémon, layering Tiamat with strand after strand of electrified silk. Tiamat shook herself free, and managed to whap the joltik a couple times with her tail, before thinking to drag the joltik towards her via its thread.

"Why? Why do I always lose to you? Do I really need to disregard these pokémon's well-being?"

"I never said that," she answered. "It's all about striking a balance."

At that point, Professor Juniper appeared with Bianca and monopolized the conversation, which ended with N stalking away angrily. Amalia and Bianca continued in the same direction, towards Mistralton.

At the Pokémon Center, Amalia thought about what N had asked her. It wasn't like Amalia didn't have any hopes or dreams. She did. She could think of a couple things right off the top of her head… except they were just whimsy. Nothing achievable. What she _really_ wanted was for her dad to be alive, but she didn't think "necromancy" or "time travel" would be appropriate answers to N's question. She had once dreamed about going to college and following in her father's footsteps. She'd wanted to maybe one day work on research alongside her father, as equals in their shared field. Those days seemed really far away now.

She opened her backpack and started unpacking it. She kept most of her supplies stored digitally on her amanita account, like clothes and makeup and a lot of tampons. As she took her jacket out of her bag, she noticed something else in there, jammed into the bottom; the library book she'd borrowed in fucking Nimbasa. By now it was ridiculously overdue, maybe even over ten dollars. That was like, half of Amalia's current net worth! She opened the book, which was titled _Fire and Lightning: Team Plasma's Influence Throughout the 80's_ , and skimmed through it, trying to determine whether this book she'd never read was worth the ten dollars she'd have to pay.

She flipped through the second half of the book, which described the details of the trial in 1988, and something fell out from between the pages. It was a polaroid photograph, slightly faded due to age. It was of three girls of varying ages. The one at center was obviously the eldest, and had her pale hair pulled back into an intricate Kalosian braid. The other two, one with pinkish hair and the other blonde, looked to be over ten years younger than the first girl. They sat together in a grassy field, arms around one another, flowers woven into their hair.

The picture had been taped to a postcard. On the back, in neat cursive writing, it read:

"To Ulisse, our brother  
We are doing Great, so there is no need for you to worry on our behalf. It is always a pleasure hearing from you. Your adventures in the city never fail to bring the three of us happiness! We can't wait to hear about your next big mishap. Our sisters have asked me to read your last letter nearly twenty times! It's getting kind of ridiculous. Please keep the letters coming, and visit us soon! We'd like to hear from you in person every now and then. Please stay strong.  
with love,  
Asherah  
Anthea  
Concordia  
'89 "

* * *

welp, this website ate my formatting in the last paragraph. Thanks :( now the letter is all ugly :( if you want to see the intended version (or as well as HTML can render it without too much effort on my part) then please look at it on AO3.

this took a while bc i was very very stressed about the election :(  
on the plus side, my entire county is blue

i still work at the mall and i still want to die

personality-wise, I'm most similar to Francesca, except I make waaaay more jokes

footnotes:  
1) listen buddy I had an existential crisis when I was amalia's age, and mine lasted almost three years. That's three years of the most soul-crushing dread you can imagine, and fuck, I almost set myself off again by writing this. It's fucking unbearable, and nihilism literally saved me.  
2) bianca's sexuality is... a mystery. I actually haven't decided how I'll work it out  
3) I am from texas and I can confirm that yes, we all carry a bajillion guns around and ride horses everywhere. I've never seen a single car in my life. We don't have subway trains in houston bc it'd fucking flood and what good would that do.  
4) I literally studied a geological map of New York and the northeastern united states for this. I spent the past two days refreshing my memory of all this earth materials stuff from back when I was a geo major. The rocks in Chargestone Cave were probably part of the Taconic Orogeny, formed through continental plates colliding and mountain building and stuff. I allowed for calcite to be present bc I noticed in the geo maps that the New York City area actually does have several areas with Marble as the surface rock, which means there were limestone deposits in the vicinity. Blueschist (that me) and Greenschist are both formed through regional metamorphism of basaltic rocks, but the circumstances are very different. there's plenty of metamorphic facies charts on the internet.  
5) remember when we had to put extra items in the PC? that would be really convenient for travelers. I don't think you could use the system to store another computer, though. Also, RIP in peace Hector.


	10. Lady of the Dancing Water

back at it again in mistralton city  
ready for some exposition? im not

content warnings: death mention, animals beating each other up, the usual

this chapter was brought to you by Robbie Rotten, who is the number one villain.

* * *

There were many different Pokémon Leagues across the United States, and they didn't necessarily follow state lines or even border one another. Some places weren't a part of any league at all. The Unova region itself consisted of a portion of New York and a piece of New Jersey, and was named after a Native American tribe that had once inhabited the same area.

Amalia knew that entering the competition was a sure way to stop Team Plasma, but it just felt so ridiculously contrived. It was so cliché, how N thought that the champion was some kind of authority on pokémon, enough that everyone would do as he says. He said that Amalia would have to challenge him for the champion title in order to stop him, and he genuinely believed that the world worked in such a simplistic way. Poor guy probably didn't know any better. Just… how was he allowed to lead anything? What kind of stupid fuck thought it was a good idea to hand the reins to a guy too naïve to know what bukkake was?

After Burgh had telephoned her one evening, distraught over hearing the Lady Gaga song "Judas" for the first time ("everything I believed in was a lie, Amalia. I don't know what to believe in anymore"), Amalia realized she wasn't taking any of this as seriously as she should be. She had all these pieces laid out in front of her; all these hints and clues that had practically been handed to her by Team Plasma itself, and she'd done nothing with it.

Amalia studied the photo that fell out of her overdue library book. Asherah, Anthea, Concordia; were they connected to Team Plasma? In all likelihood it was a coincidence. Someone had probably checked the book out and used the picture as a bookmark and forgotten it. But still, it was strange… the picture was over twenty years old, so the subjects were undeniably much older now, and the two little girls had since grown up and become adults. And Ulisse, the letter's recipient, the brother of the three girls. What had happened to him?

Even if she just wanted to return the photograph, it wouldn't be easy to find these people. All Amalia had of them were their given names, and while those names weren't exactly common, Amalia would still have to do some heavy lifting in order to find any usable results.

Whatever, it wasn't really important. Right now, Team Plasma… N wanted to take humans and pokémon away from each other. That would mean countless people losing their companions, children losing a source of joy and comfort, disabled adults and children alike bereft of creatures that had been like extensions of themselves, helping them through the day. It meant that many pokémon, who for their whole lives had known nothing but human companionship, would be turned out into the wild, where they'd lack the instincts and conditioning to properly survive. Many, many pokémon would lose the people they loved and cared for. Amalia wouldn't be allowed to see Hecate anymore.

It wasn't right. Why should everybody suffer just because _some_ people are assholes? Was N even aware of the far reaching effects his goal would have? Did he understand that "separating humans and pokémon" would include him, too?

Something wasn't adding up. Team Plasma's goals, the subway bombing, N… Why had Team Plasma tried to bomb the subway line in the first place? From what Amalia had observed, bombings weren't really their M.O. The incident in 1987 was the only example of Team Plasma doing such a thing, so Amalia didn't think it was to spread some sort of message. Were they just trying to get attention? She knew that the incident effectively elevated Ghetsis to political prominence, but there was no reason he'd even need that if he was just going to send his son to accomplish the group's goals instead.

It could be that the bomb wasn't meant to succeed in the first place. After the fact, Team Plasma wasted no time in dredging up scapegoats for the media to crucify. Amalia had read that the media frenzy following the incident was insane. It was plastered all over the front pages of the newspapers and was brought up by every news anchor, to the point that it edged out every other less marketable event. Pushed to the margins, these less newsworthy events could easily go unnoticed. Like, say, the passing of several laws regarding pokémon trainers and the authority of the regional champion. Laws that didn't affect anyone too deeply until someone with the right knowledge comes along, willing to navigate the many loopholes to raise this law to its full potential. Someone like N.

N hadn't even been born in '87! Or, well, Amalia didn't think so, since N didn't know exactly when he was born (which still made Amalia a little sad to think about). Looking at him, though, Amalia didn't think he could be any older than twenty. And even if he had been alive in 1987, which was doubtful, he would've been a baby, too young to know what was going on.

Had N been born for the sole purpose of eventually manipulating this law? Thinking about that gave Amalia the heebie-jeebies. Imagine being someone whose entire existence had been built around this one thing, around something that had been decided years before they were even conceived. Their entire purpose, the only reason they were even born was to be a tool, a means to an end. That was fucked up. Wasn't Ghetsis N's father? God, it gave Amalia the chills.

Or maybe the chills were just from the weather. It had been raining nonstop for the past three days or so, and Amalia found herself wishing she had worn a long sleeve shirt or something besides a thin tank top underneath her jacket. Skyla's gym was chilly most days, and today it had graduated to fuckin' cold.

Amalia shivered. Today was a bad day to go braless.

Someone was waving their hand in front of her face. "Amalia? Hellooooo? You've been staring into space for the past fifteen minutes," said Bianca.

"Yeah, it's so cold in here that I think my brain is shutting down," she replied.

"Classic hypothermia. Be careful not to fall asleep," Cheren deadpanned.

"It's not _that_ cold, Cheren," said Bianca, "it's not cold enough _to die._ "

Amalia left early, heading back to the Pokémon Center. N was sitting at a table in the lobby, playing with the sleeves on his fleece jacket. Ever since Amalia had told him off in Chargestone Cave, he'd been avoiding her. She thought she would be a lot happier about this, but instead it just left her irritable.

"Oh wow if it isn't Fuckface Supreme," she monotoned, feeling antagonistic as she made to stand near where he was sitting.

He crossed his arms and glared up at her. "Go _away,_ Amalia."

"What? I haven't done anything."

"Just _leave me alone._ "

"Is something the matter?"

He didn't answer, crossing his arms tighter and turning away so he faced the opposite direction.

Well that was alright, Amalia thought. She didn't really want to talk to him anyway, though she did feel kind of bad that she'd apparently pissed him off so much that he didn't want to talk to anyone. Usually he jumped at any opportunity to run his mouth. Amalia would think about it later. Currently she was still very cold, so she headed up to the room she was renting at the Pokémon Center to change clothes.

The room was exactly as she left it; the bed covers were askew, her makeup bag emptied all over the desk… she set her backpack down and noticed one of the pockets was unzipped. Was it like that when she left?

She looked inside to check if anything had fallen out, but didn't notice anything missing. She zipped it back up and went to grab a thicker shirt with actual sleeves.

She planned to stay in her room for a little longer, but for some reason she felt antsy whenever she tried to sit down. Walking around would probably help, maybe she could also look for something to eat.

It wasn't long before she ran into Francesca.

"Aren't you supposed to be investigating Team Plasma?" she asked.

"I'm not supposed to be doing anything," Francesca replied.

"Well I thought you were investigating them," Amalia finished.

"That's exactly what I'm doing."

"Uh," Amalia began. They were in the Mistralton Pokémon Center's computer lab, and Francesca was clearly playing tetris.

"Team Plasma seems to show up wherever you happen to be, so if I wait around long enough, they'll probably show themselves," Francesca added.

"Are you implying that I'm a member of Team Plasma?" Amalia asked, mildly offended.

"No. I know you aren't. But wherever you are, _that boy_ is sure to be somewhere nearby."

Oh, yeah.

"I just don't understand. Why are they so interested in _you?_ You're nothing special," Francesca continued, apparently forgetting that Amalia was right there and could hear everything she was saying. "Why? What's with this sudden string of inquiries? Is it…" Francesca's eyes widened. "You think I'M involved with them?"

"Well, you do have knowledge that only an insider would have," Amalia conceded.

"Hmph."

"But I don't think you're with them." At least not any more.

"Good, because I'm not," she stated.

"Then why do you know so much about them? How do you know their passwords? Why did Zinzolin recognize you?"

Francesca let out a breath that she had been holding and lowered her voice. "Listen, Amalia. The thing about a cult is that the members didn't necessarily choose to be in it. Many of them are born into it and indoctrinated early. This is especially true for Team Plasma, which has been around for hundreds of years. It is exceedingly hard to escape.

"It's not impossible to leave, it's just… Team Plasma always takes care of their own, you understand?"

"Soo… you were born into the cult?" asked Amalia.

"No," said Francesca, "my dad was."

Francesca waved her hand dismissively. "Ugh, whatever, just forget about it, okay? It's not important," she said as she shut down her computer and walked off.

Amalia thought it was plenty important, and it certainly explained a lot about Francesca's whole… personality… thing.

If her father had been born into Team Plasma, then Francesca probably did know a bit more about their inner workings than the average person. Her father had first-hand experience with it, and it was evident that Francesca's knowledge came from her father's experience.

Francesca's father was dead. She had told Amalia as much with her half-assed condolences. Had something happened between Francesca's family and Team Plasma? That seemed to be the implication, judging by Francesca's confrontation with Cassius Zinzolin at the cold storage. Presumably it had something to do with him leaving, but why?

Amalia focused on her memories of the cold storage. Francesca must've resembled her father a great deal, if Zinzolin had been able to recognize her without really knowing who she was. If Zinzolin could recognize her based on family resemblance alone, then Mr Alessandri probably wasn't the average mook. But a prominent member defecting? Weren't Plasma elite supposed to protect their own?

Amalia pushed those thoughts aside and set her stuff down at the computer Francesca had vacated. She'd left her own computer back at home since it was too heavy for her to carry without having Hector to drive her around.

She put the names from the photograph through google, but it turned up nothing relevant. A couple of the names sounded familiar, though Amalia couldn't really place where she'd heard them. Yeah, all four individuals carried the names of mythological beings (their parents must've been fucking _weird)_ but Amalia felt this association was more recent. Nothing came to mind, though.

There was no telling how long the photograph had been shoved between the pages of the book before Amalia had checked it out. Hell, it could've been there years. Whoever it belonged to had been researching Team Plasma, and whether the picture was relevant to the topic or just served as a convenient bookmark was anyone's guess.

On a whim, Amalia typed in "team plasma asherah" into the search bar… and got nothing. Well, there went that brilliant idea.

Whoever these people were, it was evident that the three sisters hadn't seen Ulisse in some time, but were in regular correspondence with him at the time the note was written. Judging from their curiosity about the city, they probably lived somewhere pretty rural. Ulisse had left wherever _that_ was to make it big in the city.

But why couldn't the girls just go visit their brother in the city? If they wanted to see him so badly, it shouldn't've been that hard to just go… maybe Ulisse's letters were their only connection to the outside world. What had he written to them? All of this was just wild speculation.

Amalia thought about what Francesca had said: leaving the cult was difficult, but not impossible. She wondered how uncommon it really was to leave; after all, she knew of at least two people who'd done it. She found herself wondering who had left first: Ulisse, or Mr Alessandri? Did they know each other?

Francesca brought up another good point: Amalia was nothing special. At least, she didn't think she was. She was just like everyone else; human, with likes and dislikes and the same variations and differences that marked literally every single one of the approximately 7 billion people on the planet. The only thing she considered extraordinary about herself was _herself_ , and the same could be said for everyone else. People were exceptional not because of appearances or destiny or their usefulness to society, people were exceptional because every person was an individual.

Well, that train of thought suddenly turned philosophical. But really, Amalia was no better than anyone else. She thought highly of herself, true, but she recognized that in the grand scheme of things, she was just one of many, many others. The only reason Team Plasma thought she was special was because N thought she was special. He thought she was some kind of hero or something, right? The hero of ideals, belief, justice. She didn't really understand where he'd got that; she didn't see any of those qualities within herself. She was a nihilist, she didn't hold any special system of beliefs, and she was kind of a bitch. If they were making comparisons, wouldn't N be the idealistic one? He seemed to believe wholeheartedly in whatever he was doing and had a surprisingly sunny outlook on the world. Did he really believe he was pursuing some kind of deep truth? Truth was subjective anyway; everyone saw it differently. The idea that there was one truth that held fast above all else was incredibly idealistic…

She was going in circles. She shook her thoughts away.

"Amalia?" someone said, and she nearly jumped out of her seat.

"What?" she said, turning around. It was N. "I thought you didn't want to talk to me."

"I didn't," he said. He hugged his arms closer to himself and looked down at his shoes. "Not when you're being mean."

"Ok listen, I'm sorry I called you Fuckface Supreme. I was joking."

"That's not what this is about."

She thought about making another smartass comment, but kept her mouth shut.

"I get it; you don't agree with my goals –" he started.

"That's an understatement," she muttered.

"– you think that pokémon battles exist to foster mutual understanding between one another, when it's really just a competition to prove one's worth… it's putting the desire to win over a pokémon's safety and reveling in their pain, it's–"

"Then don't do it," Amalia stated, recalling something Iris said several months ago. "If you don't like pokémon battles, then don't participate in them."

N's eyes widened, but he quickly hid his reaction. "And you expect me to just stand by while my friends get hurt?"

"Listen, you might consider all pokémon to be your friends, but do all pokémon consider _you_ their friend? Friendship is mutual, y'know. I mean," she explained, "just an example, but as far as I know, Hecate _doesn't like you."_

"No, _you_ don't understand, Amalia." His voice was dangerously low. It almost sounded threatening. "I grew up around pokémon. I was raised by them! I've been around them since I was born. Nobody understands pokémon the way I can!"

That explained a lot.

He continued: "I can understand pokémon better than I understand people. With humans, there's all these nuances and unsaid words and saying one thing but meaning something different. At least pokémon are straightforward! _At least pokémon say what they mean!"_

"Oh god, N, I'm sor–"

"You say that, but are you really? Or are you just making fun of me again?"

"N… C'mon, you know I wouldn't – okay, yeah, I would – but I wouldn't make fun of you for something like that, alright?" He looked incredulous. "Okay, here," she said, grabbing a pokéball, "you can talk to Elodea instead of me, alright?"

She let Elodea out of her pokéball and went about checking her social media, the sound of N talking fading into the background. Someone had tagged her in a photo, though she didn't recall taking any pictures lately. Amalia clicked through to a picture her mom posted of herself when she was younger, smiling and standing next to her father for some school event. Amalia quickly closed the web browser, suddenly feeling very tired.

N looked at her from where he sat on the floor. "Your pokémon trust you very much – all of them do. If everyone were like you, Amalia, then perhaps I wouldn't need to change the world."

"If everyone was like me, then the world would be pretty boring, huh?" she mused. N looked at her quizzically. "I mean, what would be the point, if everyone thought the same and had the same opinions? It would just be one big self-congratulatory circlejerk where everyone just keeps patting each other on the back. It's a monotonous, colorless world."

"That's not what I meant."

She felt a spike of irritation. "Yeah, but what did you mean? The thing is, the trust between me and my pokémon? That's not unique. It's actually pretty damn common, and by that I mean nearly everyone who interacts with pokémon on a daily basis has that kind of connection. You just haven't been paying attention.

"The people who abuse pokémon? They're the minority. There's always going to be shitty people, N."  
He didn't seem to acknowledge that. "Honestly, it does break my heart a little bit to think that, in the world I strive for, you and your pokémon will be separated."

Amalia narrowed her eyes.

"Amalia," he said, "is the reason you're so angry, is it because your father died? Were you close to your dad?" His face was so innocent, like he was genuinely curious.

She felt her throat grow tight as a wave of sadness washed over her. "What… what is wrong with you?!"

N at least had the decency to look horrified. "Your pokémon mentioned something about it and I–"

She returned Elodea to her pokéball. Amalia could feel her eyes getting wet.

"– I wanted to know what it's like having a close relationship with your parent!" The panic was evident in the way he stuttered through his words. He probably hadn't anticipated her to react like that.

"You don't understand _anything!"_ she said as she burst into tears and fled the room.

It just wasn't fair, she thought once she was back in her room, it wasn't fair that her father had to die. Why couldn't that taxi driver hit someone else instead? Amalia was aware that such a thought was extremely selfish of her, but so what? It didn't hurt to be selfish sometimes. She sniffled and cried into her knees. Losing her father was so hard. How did anybody deal with it? Francesca had lost her father, how had she dealt with it? With the same bitchy indifference that she used for everything else?

She cried some more. There were wet spots on the knees of her jeans and she couldn't breathe out of her nose anymore. Crying was so gross and humiliating.

Had N really meant what he'd said? She recalled him saying he wasn't particularly close to his sisters, either. She remembered him saying that there was a large age gap between them, so maybe that was why…

Something clicked. Amalia pulled out the picture she'd found in the library book and turned it over to read the sender's names. Anthea and Concordia. He'd mentioned them as his sisters. But if they were N's sisters, and Asherah and Ulisse were _their_ siblings, then didn't that make Asherah and Ulisse N's siblings as well? He probably didn't know about them, since Ulisse had already left Team Plasma, but what had happened to Asherah?

The only person Amalia knew with any inner knowledge about Team Plasma was Francesca, and that knowledge came from her father… who was dead.

She'd get a chance to ask Francesca later that week, when she was matched against her at the gym.

They battled 3-on-3, with Hecate up first against Francesca's salazzle. The salazzle burned through any webbing that Hecate made, but Hecate was sneaky, climbing up on surfaces and skittering around to get the drop on the other pokémon. When Hecate got hit head-on with a ball of fire, Amalia withdrew her, sending out her next pokémon.

Francesca took out Amalia's second pokémon with ease, her gothorita still standing strong. Amalia sent out her third pokémon – a crawdaunt she'd found behind a supermarket. Stumpy snapped his one claw and charged at the gothorita, smacking her square in the face. The blow sent her flying and she landed about five feet away, already starting another psychic attack. Whatever it was, Stumpy was unaffected, scuttling over to where the gothorita was and proceeding to clobber her with his claw and other clawless arm. Gothorita was sent back to her pokéball, and Francesca sent out her last pokémon, amoonguss.

Stumpy, with lots of anger and no sense of self-preservation, ran to the other pokémon and began tearing at its flesh with his one pincer. Amalia called for him to fall back, but the amoonguss attacked with part of its mycelium, pulling Amalia's pokémon to the ground, pulling his joints into weird positions. Amalia conceded the match.

The result didn't really surprise her. Francesca was incredibly strong and incredibly ruthless when it came to pokémon battling, and Amalia didn't think she was quite on the same level yet. She'd need to train a lot more to reach that level.

After the match, she approached Francesca. "I need to ask you something," she said.

Francesca turned her full attention to Amalia.

"It's about your father," Amalia clarified.

"Okay."

"Did…" Amalia hesitated. "Did Team Plasma have anything to do with his death?"

Francesca closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Team Plasma had everything to do with my father's death," she said. "They killed him."

"Alright," said Amalia, reaching into her backpack to retrieve the photograph. "Do you know anything about a woman named Asherah?"

* * *

when I'm done with this story, I will probably go back and edit/change a couple parts so its more cohesive and stuff.

footnotes:  
1\. OKAY. So in real life, Asherah is the name of the semitic goddess who is Yahweh's wife. You heard me right: Yahweh, the god of the bible, mr jealous god himself, pinnacle of monotheism, had a wife. who was also a god. Asherah, according to wikipedia, was the goddess of the seas. Judaism did not originate as a monotheistic religion, and only became what resembles judaism today after the babylonian exile.  
2\. Why is there so much focus on everyone's father? lets just say, i have a bad relationship with my mom and I have a hard time visualizing what a 'loving mother' is like?  
3\. I think N, despite being detached from humanity and stuff, does seek approval from Ghetsis the way one would seek approval from a parent. He's very trusting, and its clear in B&W that he really really trusted Ghetsis. I think, on some level, he did desire that kind of parent-child bond, which he didn't get because, yannow, it's GHETSIS.  
4\. I had a pet crayfish when I was a kid. His name was fishy, and he had only one arm. I got him at a crayfish boil and took him home lmfao.  
5\. Gen VII pokemon are fair game and I'll include them if I wanna. (i love salazzle and minior and araquanid)

what do ya'll think? do you have any predictions or anything? I know my writing isn't exactly subtle lol, but it'd be cool to see what ya'll think will happen :) I already know what happens, of course.


	11. Save the World? JUST GIVE IT UP ALREADY!

what a mess

content warnings: sexual situations, racist microaggressions; the usual

i will proofread later, though I'm pretty sure most things are spelled and written correctly.

* * *

"Where'd you get that?" Francesca hissed as she made a grab at the picture.

"I found it in a library book I checked out," Amalia answered.

Francesca narrowed her eyes. "Well it's mine. Give it back."

"What?"

"I said it's _mine._ It belongs to me. I lost it."

Amalia dumbly handed it over. "Wait, then who are the people in the picture?"

Francesca looked at her like she was stupid. "They're my relatives."

Amalia took a while to process that.

"Why would I have a photograph of people I don't fucking know?" Francesca reiterated.

But they didn't look anything alike! "Wait, wait. They're not… but you're, um…" Amalia made vague gestures with her hands as she attempted to finish her sentence.

"But I'm _black?_ Amalia, you know black people and white people can be related to each other, right? I thought you were smarter than that."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Amalia backpedaled, "but Ulisse is your father, right? So the girls in the picture would be his sisters…"

"Really?" she snapped, sarcasm lacing her voice. "They're half-siblings. My grandmother got around."

"Oh," said Amalia dumbly.

"Is that it? Can I continue with my day now?"

Amalia was still speechless. "Uh, yeah. Sure," she said, forgetting what else she'd wanted to ask the other girl.

Francesca turned swiftly, her braids nearly hitting Amalia in the face.

After that, Francesca seemed to avoid Amalia, and honestly she couldn't really blame her. She didn't realize the picture was Francesca's, was of her fucking family. She'd probably been looking for it for a while now, and the whole time Amalia had had it in her stupid backpack shoved between the stupid pages in her stupid overdue library book that she had never fucking read. And now Amalia had gone and alienated the only real source of information she had, not to mention someone she considered a friend. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Her brain kept the conversation on repeat, much to her own annoyance and second-hand (first-hand?) embarrassment. She couldn't believe (well, actually, she could) she'd said something so, uh, culturally insensitive? Was that even the right word for it? Well, regardless of what it should be called, it was still rude, and Amalia couldn't even look at Francesca without feeling sick at herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Well, it did confirm one thing: the people in the photograph were definitely involved with Team Plasma. Ulisse Alessandri was Francesca's father, and the half-brother of the three girls in the photo. He'd left Team Plasma, started a family, and was eventually killed by the group he thought he'd left behind. It was all pretty tragic.

Like, at least her own father hadn't been murdered by a cult. Still didn't really answer any of Amalia's other questions, though. Like what had happened to the sisters? And why, if Team Plasma was such a secretive organization, did they allow Ulisse Alessandri to keep in contact with some of its members?

Was he killed for knowing too much?

That was a scary thought. After all, it wouldn't be too hard for Team Plasma to keep tabs on all its members what with how easily the Shadow Triad or whatever had been able to gather information about Amalia and her friends. With a group like that, it would be easy to track down and eliminate anyone who became a threat to the organization…

Oh god…

Did… did Amalia know too much? Would she be eliminated, like they did to Ulisse?

Francesca had known what she was getting into when she decided to investigate them. She knew the risks of getting too close, of knowing too much. If they went after her, she'd know what to expect.

Amalia didn't have any of Francesca's background. She hadn't known anything when she'd gotten tangled up in this Team Plasma business. She hadn't even wanted to get involved, but she'd been dragged into it by N's weird fixation on her! She might as well just paint a target on her back and go stand in a shooting range. After all, it was only a matter of time before they decided she was a threat or something!

But N… N wouldn't let that happen, would he? No. He wouldn't do that to her, he wouldn't allow anyone in his organization to do that. Even though she hated to admit it, Amalia trusted N. If they were stuck in a life-or-death situation together, she would probably trust him with her life. It was just the kind of person he was. He was honest and trusting and innocent and idealistic and trapped between believing in the inherent goodness in all things and believing that all humans were inherently cruel. Too bad he was such a dick about it.

His words from the last time they spoke still upset her. It didn't matter if he didn't mean it to sound the way it did. It was both dismissive and insensitive. As if Amalia had no other reasons to be angry! (and as if N himself wasn't currently a very large one of those reasons!) As if her father's death was the only reason she'd ever act unpleasantly. The wound was still raw, and Amalia wasn't sure she'd ever finish mourning.

She closed her eyes.

Not even a week after she'd run away crying when asked about her father, she'd gone and asked Francesca the same kind of question. She was such a hypocrite! Did she ever stop to think about how it affected Francesca?

Amalia was such a shitty friend.

She poured herself a cup of coffee in the lobby of the Pokémon Center, hoping it would help stave off the inevitable exhaustion that came from being awake all night.

She set it on the arm of the sofa and when it wobbled on the unsteady surface, she swore she could feel her soul leaving her body. She caught the drink before it fell, but now her heart was racing a mile a minute and she was awake enough that she didn't even need the coffee anymore.

Deciding that she'd had enough excitement for the day (it was 10:30am), she returned to her room, determined to spend the rest of her day there. It was a Friday, so it wasn't like Skyla's gym was open anyway.

She recalled saying goodbye to her father, hugging him before he left for Castelia. It felt like so long ago, but it was only in March. Eight months wasn't a very long time. She'd lived for a little over eighteen years before that, so eight months really wasn't a long time. But already, the things Before were starting to get fuzzy… what if one day, she woke up and she couldn't remember his face….?

She must've dozed off.

She woke up to the yawning of her empty stomach and the sound of someone knocking on the door. Begrudgingly, she got up and made her way towards it, not bothering to look through the peephole to check who it was.

N was waiting outside, pretending he wasn't a colossal nuisance. "Amalia, I came to – No, wait!"

She promptly shut the door. She didn't have time for this. Maybe she'd order chinese food…

She reopened the door. "Why are you here?"

N looked nervous. "You've been avoiding me," he said, "and I know it's cos of what I said… about your dad…"

"Among other factors," Amalia added.

"And I didn't mean it to sound the way it did… well actually it sounded exactly as it did in my head but I didn't really consider how it would sound to other people, and I know now that I shouldn't have asked that question the way I did but –"

"N," she said, hoping that maybe he'd stop talking about it.

"–And I didn't mean to word it in a way that would upset you though I'm still kind of confused. I know what I said was bad but at the same time I don't understand _how_ and –"

God, he looked so confused and upset, and that disgusting feeling of fondness bubbled back into Amalia's chest all over again.

N followed her into the room and she shut the door.

"It was a stupid question too, I knew you were close to your dad cos Hecate told me but I just wanted to -to know –"

"N it's… it's fine," she lied, sitting down on the bed. N came and sat next to her.

To his credit, it looked like he didn't believe her. "It is? Um, are you sure?" he asked.

Amalia hugged her knees as a tightness spread across her chest. "…no," she said, her voice sounding embarrassingly small.

"Oh," he said. Amalia felt his weight shifting next to her as he turned to embrace her in an awkward hug. "Amalia, I'm sorry about your dad. You clearly cared for him a great deal and… I'm really sorry."

"Um, N, what are you doing?" she said between sniffles.

"I'm trying to act comforting."

"Oh."

"Shut up, I saw them do this on a TV show, so I'm assuming it's what you're supposed to do."

Amalia laughed despite herself. "Oh my god," she said, leaning back and wiping at her eyes. "Are you serious?"

"No," he admitted. "When I was little, my sister would hold me like that when I was upset. I didn't really adjust well to suddenly being around people."

"You seem pretty alright with it now."

"It took a lot of work." For some reason, those words made Amalia sad.

"What was it like?" she said, "I mean, you said you were, uh, raised by pokémon, so… what was that like?"

"I don't really remember," he said. "I think… things were good for a while… but then something happened. Something bad."

"Oh."

N furrowed his brow, clearly trying to recall something. "I got sick. It wasn't bad at first… One of the pokémon taking care of me left to find food and never came back, and not long after the other one left also to find food. She never came back either. I think something might've happened to them."

"That's terrible, N."

"I got really, really sick after that. It was very cold, and I had nothing. Then, one day, a stranger reached out their hand to me, and there was… something about this person that was so familiar to me. I couldn't really understand much of what he said, but he knew my name! And –"

He was talking about Ghetsis.

"And as he carried me away, wrapped up in a blanket I just felt so safe and I just instinctually knew he was my father." N lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. "That's one of my favorite memories," he said.

"I had no idea that Ghetsis did all that for you."

"Yeah. I owe him so much. I… really hope I can make him proud one day."

Amalia felt her heart drop. "He should already be proud of you," she said.

"You think so?"

"Yeah, you're his child."

N seemed to perk up a little, and smiled. Amalia felt guilty all over again, for everything. Things that weren't her fault, that neither she nor N had any control over. She tried to reconcile the image N had painted of Ghetsis with what she now knew about the man. Even if he was a manipulative, lying bastard, he surely cared something for his son, right?

The governor had other kids, too. There were N's sisters, who were also Asherah and Ulisse's sisters, both of whom had never been mentioned by N.

In the photograph, Asherah looked like she was an adult. If she was an adult in '89, and Ghetsis was currently fifty-three years old, then there was no way she and Ghetsis were related. But the three girls were half-siblings, so that didn't really prove anything. If the younger girls were his kids, then Ghetsis was at one point sleeping with a woman at least fifteen years – Ok, Amalia didn't want to think about that. She didn't want that imagery anywhere near her brain. On a list of things she never wanted to think about, that was probably number 1, topping the list over a number of things she had yet to think about but were probably also pretty gross.

"What's wrong? You just made a weird face."

"Nothing!" she said, a little too quickly.

Anyway, if all four of Francesca's relatives shared the same mother, then it was likely none of them were Ghetsis' kids.

"N," she said, "do you know anyone named Asherah?"

He thought on it for a moment. "I don't think so," he said, shaking his head.

"Ok," she said, and dropped that line of inquiry. Shit, she'd need to talk to Francesca sooner or later.

"Amalia?" said N, snapping her attention back to the moment.

"Hm?"

"I'm, um… thanks. You're the only person I can really talk to about things like this… It's nice." He wasn't looking at her, but a warm feeling flooded into Amalia's chest at his admission. She leaned back on the bed, propping herself up with her elbows, and was overcome with the overwhelming urge to just _touch_ him.

"Amalia?" he breathed, his voice breaking her out of her thoughts. "What are you doing?"

She was leaning over him, one of her hands cupping his face. He was kind of scruffy today, and Amalia enjoyed the prickly feeling as she ran her thumb over his jawline. "Do you want me to stop?" she asked.

"No."

Amalia shifted her body into a more comfortable position above him and leaned down to close the distance between them.

It was very awkward, but then, Amalia didn't really expect any different with N. She gently guided his hands to rest on her hips, thinking that he could figure out what to do with them from there. She shifted her position, body pressed flush against his, and kissed him again.

The second time wasn't as awkward. It was still sloppy, but whatever, Amalia wasn't a miracle worker. She rolled her hips, enjoying the feeling of his dick pressing into the soft flesh of her inner thigh –

And then she remembered just what he stood for. His beliefs, his goals, and how he adamantly refused to accept even the possibility he was wrong.

She sat up. "Um… I, uh, just remembered! That I'm… I'm on my period! Sorry N, guess we'll have to continue this another day!" she said as she led him out the door. "See you later!"

Once he was gone, she leaned back against the door and sat down. Her mind was overflowing with a continued chorus of "what the fuck." She'd really fucked it up this time. Ugh, now he'd probably never leave her alone. But was that what she actually wanted? She didn't want to think about this right now. She had a gym match in a couple of days, and that was definitely worth thinking about. Way more worthy of thought than whatever had just happened.

The day after her gym match, Burgh gave her a call.

"Hey, you wanna do something cool? Lenora is letting me visit their dig site on route four."

"It's the end of October."

"Yeah, so?"

"Burgh. I've got to prepare for the championships. I still need to beat two more gym leaders before January. I'm not sure if I have time…"

"Pfft! Brycen and Drayden are easy, you won't have any trouble," Burgh assured her.

Amalia didn't respond.

"Come onnnnnn!" he insisted, "Give in to peer pressure once in a while, will you? I will personally see to it that you win your last two gym matches on time."

"Besides," he continued, "it's not like you're actually gonna spend all that time training. Come on, Amalia, it'll take your mind off things."

It would be nice to not think about all that Team Plasma stuff for a while, so of course she went.

"What happened to your brother anyway?" Burgh said when he came to pick her up. "I haven't seen him in a while."

"Oh, he's grounded."

Burgh laughed. "Oh man! What a shame. I think my parents gave up on me when I was like, what, fifteen?"

"Well that's kind of depressing," said Amalia.

"Oh no no no, not like _that,_ " he said, taking one of his hands off the steering wheel. "My parents were pretty supportive of me. I mean, like, they gave up all hope that I would grow to be a normal member of society… y'know, marry a nice Jewish girl and have nice Jewish babies."

He paused and raised his eyebrows. "Now my grandma's holding out hope I'll meet a nice Jewish boy and adopt lots of nice Jewish babies, so the expectations are quite different!"

Burgh seemed to ponder that for a moment before speaking again: "You know, I don't think I've ever actually dated another Jew. Not that I'd be opposed to it, it's just so much funnier to hear my grandma complain about my taste in men."

He raised his voice to a falsetto, evidently trying to imitate an elderly Eastern European woman: "Oy vey, Arthur! That goy's much too short for you!"

"I don't think my parents ever really cared much who I dated, at least once I turned sixteen," said Amalia, "I dated a lot of football players."

"You _would_ be the girl who only dates jocks, wouldn't you?"

"Shut up! I dated other guys too…"

They pulled into the parking lot of the Desert Resort's visitor's center where, according to Burgh, they were to meet Lenora.

When they met up with her, Lenora spoke in a very firm voice. "Remember, Burgh, don't touch _anything_ without my permission."

"Haha, you don't have to worry about that! I'm just here to draw and take pictures. Since when have I ever…"

Lenora turned around, her deadpan gaze fixed on Burgh.

"I promise I won't touch anything," he said robotically.

They continued towards their destination, Lenora occasionally providing historical facts and background information about the area.

"While the top part of the structure is still standing, much of it has been buried in the sand. Some of the lower levels are completely inaccessible," Lenora explained, "we don't know exactly why the ancients built it, though the general consensus these days is that it served as an important part of the city. It's probably around, eh, 2500 years old."

"So it's older than Jesus," said Amalia.

"Or not, since Jesus wasn't necessarily real, y'know," Burgh added. Lenora rolled her eyes.

"Wait, so we're going _inside?_ " asked Amalia, who was thinking about the structural integrity of a 2500 year old building that was buried in the dirt.

"It's pretty structurally sound," Lenora assured her.

"Well that's good, 'cause being crushed by several thousand tons of rock doesn't sound like a very good time."

Lenora ignored her comment. "We've excavated most of the higher floors, it's just taking a while to fully catalog all of our findings. Stuff like bones, pottery sherds, religious idols, wall carvings, stuff like that. Of course, most of that information is noted as we uncover these items, but putting it in a cohesive format makes it much easier to understand what we have."

A tent had been put up over the site's entrance to protect it from the elements. Inside, there were various excavation tools, ladders, and other things laid out. There were also two desks, stacked with several heavy notebooks that had been piled there haphazardly.

"Wow Lenora, you're getting messy," Burgh commented.

"That's not how I left it," she said, her brows furrowed.

"Huh?" Burgh said eloquently.

"I said I left my desk much neater than this," she repeated.

"Maybe one of the other archaeologists was looking through your research notes for reference?" suggested Amalia.

"You're right. Though I'd hope they would at least _try_ to put things back where they found them… I'll have to have a talk with Marwan when he gets back on Tuesday… Anyways, come on. What I wanted to show you is a couple floors down." Lenora guided them down the stairwell and into the ruins.

"Don't volcarona live around here?" Burgh asked.

"Far too many of them," answered Lenora.

"There's no such thing as 'too many' bug pokémon."

"When they crowd around every available light source and accidentally set each other on fire then yes, there is such a thing."

"I want one," said Burgh quietly.

The walls of the ruin were carved into an intricate relief of geometric patterns, occasionally broken up by carvings of people or pokémon. As they got further down, the pictures gave way to occasional bits of writing, in a script that struck Amalia as looking vaguely familiar.

"Ha ha, this looks like Hebrew," said Burgh, who was standing in front of one particular wall of text. He leaned closer to the wall, squinting at the letters, "It's not, though."

He decided to set up shop there, declaring that "this is going to be the inspiration for my newest art exhibition." Amalia decided to look around as well, wandering a little ways down a nearby passage. The sounds of the native pokémon faded into the background, until she realized that those sounds were actually footsteps coming from the opposite end of the passage.

Amalia quickly walked back the way she came and stood stiffly next to Burgh, whom she was prepared to use as a human shield if need be.

A familiar liepard emerged from the passageway, followed by his familiar owner. He squinted across the room at Amalia, clearly not expecting to see her there. "Amalia? What are you doing here–"

"AUCKGHH," Burgh screamed, throwing his pencil and sketchbook into the air and scaring a solid three lives out of Cheren's cat.

Burgh clutched at his chest. "Holy shit! Why the fuck would you DO that? What is WRONG with you!?"

"What are _you_ doing here, Cheren?" Amalia said, completely ignoring Burgh.

"Seriously I almost DIED!" Burgh lamented.

"I was training with Alder and apparently Team Plasma is in here?" he shrugged. "We came here and split up."

Burgh momentarily stopped whining to ask a question: "Wait. What is Team Plasma doing here?"

Cheren shrugged. "Hell if I know. I've been wandering around aimlessly for the past half-hour."

"Maybe they aren't actually here," said Amalia.

"How the fuck would I know? They might not be. It's like… Schrödinger's terrorists… or something."

"That's clever," said Burgh, "but if they're here to fuck up these ruins then I'm gonna have to give them a stern talking-to. With my fists."

"No Burgh," said Amalia.

"You said Alder was here? Where is he?" Burgh asked Cheren.

"I said we split up, didn't I?"

"Listen, if Team Plasma is _really_ here, then we should probably tell Lenora about it," Amalia suggested.

"Oh. Yeah. That's probably a good idea," Cheren said.

It didn't take very long to find Lenora. She was only a little bit deeper in the ruins, examining some inscription on the wall.

"I just can't shake the feeling that someone else is down here," she said, mostly to herself.

"That's because Team Plasma is in here," said Cheren.

Lenora rolled her eyes. "Oh what the fuck," she said. "When will those people leave my shit alone!"

"Maybe they're preparing for the end of the world?" Burgh joked.

They followed Lenora to a set of stairs that led even deeper into the ruins, only to be met by Alder as he came up them.

"My bad," he said, "looks like Team Plasma isn't here after all."

"Oh my _fucking_ god," Lenora muttered.

"We were in the area, when I saw some suspicious people lurking around the entrance," Alder explained.

"That was _us_ you moron!" said Lenora, who was only seconds away from strangling Unova's champion.

"I realize that now."

"Ugh. Anyway, Burgh, Amalia, what I wanted to show you guys is just up ahead, so we might as well keep going."

She led them to a rather large room, the walls decorated with the same style of relief as the rest of the complex. The images on this wall seemed to tell a story.

It appeared to depict the two heroes of legend, squabbling over their petty disagreement, with what Amalia assumed to be the legendary dragons standing between them. There was some more text carved underneath the mural, which Amalia belatedly recognized as the same language as that manuscript she'd found in the cold storage. Where was that, anyway? She hadn't seen it since she cleaned out her backpack a couple weeks ago… oh. She'd thrown it away. Right.

"Hm… I was certain all of my research pointed to both of them being _here_ , but…" said a voice not belonging to anyone in the room.

"It's fine, Boris. We have what we came for. Having the other one would have just been a nice bonus," said the governor's voice.

"See?" said Alder, "I was right."

Ghetsis smiled and raised an eyebrow, as if he had intended all along for their groups to meet. "Well, if it isn't the Unova champion! How fortunate that we should meet… and it seems you've brought some friends with you!" He glanced around the room, fixing a wicked look at Amalia.

"Are you here just to act smug and condescending, or do you actually have a purpose in being here?" said Cheren.

"We plan on freeing pokémon from the oppressive hands of their trainers. In Team Plasma's perfect world, humans and pokémon will have no contact with one another. To do this, we need the power of our region's legendary dragon. I received intel regarding an important artifact located within these ruins, and I'm here to retrieve it."

"So you're here to gloat," Cheren stated.

"You're going to separate humans and pokémon?" Alder asked. "That's bullsh–"

"If I recall correctly," Ghetsis began, "you're only champion on a technicality. You have no real authority to tell me what is and isn't right regarding pokémon training."

"I don't care! As champion, I won't allow you–"

"You're of no interest to me," he said, waving his hand dismissively and turning away from him. "Boris, take care of them, will you?"

"Of course."

"You must be _so_ proud of yourself," Ghetsis said as he approached Amalia. "Getting in our way at every opportunity… what do you think you're going to accomplish?"

"Uh."

He came to a stop less than two feet away from her. "You think you're cute? Trying to save the world? HA!" He smiled. "I'll let you in on a little secret: the world's too stupid to be saved!"

Amalia took a step backwards.

He sighed. "Our king is fond of you… He thinks you've been chosen by fate to awaken the other dragon… but it doesn't matter. He's determined to follow the path that's been set for him, and he will succeed. Sure, our goals may result in the sadness of many…"

Ghetsis inhaled deeply. "…But there is no better moment than that which a person loses all hope, don't you think?"

* * *

wow this took a long time. in my defense, i really don't remember anything that happens after driftveil city, so i had to read about the rest of the game, and i HATE reading.

also, Burgh would totally have a Lurantis. Same pants!

Footnotes

1) i've already said, I changed the order of events

2) honestly, i can't help but think that the whole like unova legend about the two heroes fighting is dumb. like, i mean that they're fighting over 'truth and ideals.' what kind of bullshit disagreement is that? It's pretty inconsequential which one is 'more important' since they're abstract concepts when you really get down to it. Like, maybe the early Unovan civilisation was doomed in the first place because its leaders couldn't fucking prioritize and decided to debate philosophy with GIANT FUCKING DRAGONS, rather than, idk, run their damn city?

3) i decided to throw ya'll a bone here (GEDDIT? BONE? LOLOL) because like, yeah

4) Amalia can speak spanish. Why doesn't she? because I can't.


	12. By the Code

this chapter also known as: lady of the dancing water part 3

content warnings: mentions of murder, mentions of animal death, mentions of human death

this chapter is relatively short.

* * *

"…And you can find a copy of the paperwork on the amanita website. Without further ado, we'll move on to the requirements," blah blah blah. You needed a full team of six pokémon, you needed to prove yourself by challenging (and winning against) all the gyms… but just having eight gym badges wasn't enough! You also had to defeat a group of four elite trainers all in a row, climb a mountain sideways using only your toes, and do a somersault. Easy stuff!

Amalia slouched in her seat, glancing over at Cheren, who was, believe it or not, taking notes. On Amalia's other side was Bianca, who was also writing in a notebook… except her notebook pages were filled with little drawings of flowers and stars and caricatures of pokémon.

Not far away, Francesca sat stoically, her braids tied up into two buns. She had her sunglasses on, and Amalia suspected she was asleep, because she hadn't moved at all in the last ten minutes. Oh wait! She was moving! Her head briefly slumped forward before she jerked it back upright. Francesca had definitely fallen asleep.

Even N, who had an incredible tolerance for boring things, looked like he was bored out of his skull. Maybe, if Amalia just got up and left, no one would notice, right? They couldn't fault her for using the restroom (even if she really wasn't!), could they?

Everyone would notice if she got up, though. Everyone would look at her and she would be branded into people's minds as "that girl who got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of that boring league seminar." Literally not a single other person had gotten up since the seminar began, so she would definitely stand out.

She stayed seated.

"Now before we discuss the logistics of the tournament, it is important to understand the history behind it…"

Oh no, Amalia thought. Oh no no no no no. Wasn't this almost over? They'd been trapped in here for, like, two hours already. She quickly got up and sidled her way through the row of seats and knees, breathing a sigh of relief as she stepped into the hallway and headed towards the ladies' room. As she walked, her mind wandered a bit, eying the walls dotted with holes from countless thumbtacks. It reminded her a bit of elementary school, where the hallways were cluttered with student's classwork.

"Oh," Amalia said, surprised, "Francesca!"

"Amalia, if this is about my family again, then _no_ , I'm not adopted," she said snidely, drying her hands with a paper towel.

"I wasn't going to say that."

Francesca put her hands on her hips. "Oh? Then what is this about?"

"I was honestly just surprised to see you here," said Amalia. She sighed. She had been thinking about what to say for weeks, and she still felt at a loss for words. "Look, I'm sorry about that, okay? What I said was ignorant and insensitive."

Francesca looked genuinely surprised.

Amalia continued: "What I said was just… really stupid. Thanks for calling me out on it."

"Uh, okay…" Francesca sounded unsure, which was a far cry from her usual straightforward demeanor. "I uh, wasn't really expecting that," she said, "people don't usually apologize to me.

"I don't really know how to respond," she finished.

"That's fine," said Amalia, "I don't think you really have to."

"Well I'll um, see you later, I guess," said Francesca awkwardly, as she fled the restroom.

Amalia hadn't fucked up again, had she? Well, at least she'd tried.

To her relief, the thing seemed to be wrapping up by the time she got back from the bathroom. People had started to stand up and collect their things, and Amalia ran to join Bianca and Cheren.

"I can't believe they're gonna make us print the forms out ourselves," Bianca complained, "that costs money, you know!"

"It only costs fifteen cents to print things at the pokémon center," replied Cheren.

"Yeah, _per page_. It's extortion, that's what it is."

"Well, I don't think the price will matter too much when you win."

"Yeah, but Cheren, only one person can win, and that's not even guaranteed. You could win against everyone else only to get your ass kicked by the champion."

"That won't happen to me. I'll win for sure."

Bianca rolled her eyes. "Yeah, of course."

Though they were still training in Brycen's gym, Amalia was staying in Opelucid City. The commute was nothing public transportation couldn't solve, and besides the gym, Icirrus City had, well, nothing. It was a rustic little town with more bed-and-breakfasts than it had people, a popular destination for tourists who wanted to stand around and gawk at Dragonspiral Tower. And windmills. There were a lot of old-fashioned windmills. It was kind of their thing.

It couldn't really be called a city, in Amalia's opinion, especially since there was only one McDonald's in the whole town. She wasn't really fond of being stuck in the middle of nowhere. When the only real activity is to loiter around the local Wal-Mart looking for a fight, there was really no need to stick around. Amalia could find better fights elsewhere. Furthermore, as a scenic tourist spot, lodging in Icirrus was far too expensive for what it had to offer. Why pay so much for a tiny room with no bathroom, when she could pay the same amount for a decent room in a city that actually had things worth doing? The extra 30 minutes she had to spend on her commute was nothing compared to the hours of boredom that she would have staying in a town like Icirrus.

The November weather was cold, but still pleasant. There had been a string of clear, sunny days where the sunlight would warm her skin where it touched her. While she couldn't really let her pokémon run about the way she could during summertime, it could still be enjoyable in short bursts. For arthropods like Hecate and Dio, their metabolism was heavily tied to the temperature around them, so chilly weather could affect their movement and agility. In the wild, they would usually take on some form of dormancy to survive the cold months. Hecate was from a much warmer climate, and probably wouldn't be able to survive on her own in Unova. Some ariados species could probably make it, sure, but a giant woodsmen ariados would just freeze solid into a big gruesome spider popsicle. Unfortunately, this meant that Hecate could no longer freely access food as she pleased. A hungrier ariados was an angrier ariados.

Hecate knew which pokémon were okay to eat and which ones were not. She knew when she could and could not kill, that in battles against other pokémon trainers eating the other pokémon was not okay. Since it was starting to get too cold for Hecate to hunt, Amalia had to go buy feeder rattatas from the local pet store. It was considerably grosser watching Hecate eat a live pokémon when she did it inside of a building. Amalia also had to buy frozen rattatas for Tiamat, who now had two mouths to feed, as she was still too young to not hurt herself while trying to wrestle with a live one. Then she had to get wurmples for Dio, and then other small creatures for Selphy, Elodea, and Stumpy. Some people looked derisively upon pokémon training as just a 'hobby,' but _damn_ was it expensive! It was no wonder the League required participants to have a full team of six pokémon, because anybody with that many had to really be dedicated.

Amalia didn't really consider herself that dedicated; she just liked watching her pokémon be happy. Sometimes, after meals, they would curl up against each other to nap. It was too cute! Amalia had at least 30 pictures on her phone of Dio curled up around Tiamat, or Hecate and Selphy leaning against one another. Being around pokémon made Amalia happy, and in turn her presence made her pokémon happy. Why was that so detrimental to Team Plasma's plans?

Though she'd heard it said at least fifty times, she still didn't really understand the connection between the Unovan legends and Team Plasma's current goals. Yeah, they were an ancient cult dedicated to upholding those legends, but what did that have to do with taking pokémon and humans away from one another? She didn't think either of the two fabled heroes had advocated for such a thing, so why now? She'd heard them talk about some sort of "prophecy," but if the prophecy was linked to the legends, then what the hell did it have to do with Team Plasma's actual goals? Was it all tied to some kind of bizarre Judgment Day preparation? The Mayan calendar ended in 2012, so the timeline kind of fit…

N didn't seem like the type to care about shitty superstitions. Neither did Ghetsis. And besides, if their aim was to prepare for rapture, then why did they need the assistance of several multimillion-dollar companies? Why did they need everyone to conform to their will? Why did they stage a bomb threat over 20 years ago? It seemed like way too much work for the end of the world.

The barista called Amalia's name, and she took her drink and sat down in an empty corner of the café.

She let herself relax for a while, idly scrolling through facebook while she sipped at her coffee. She allowed the world to fade around her, her only focus being the phone screen and the drink in her hand.

Someone slammed their coffee cup onto her table. "Amalia, we need to talk," Francesca demanded, looking agitated. She sat in the seat across from her.

"Um, okay?"

"I heard from Cheren that you guys were in the ruins near route 4," she said. "And that you ran into Team Plasma. Is that true?"

"Yeah…"

"And that the sage Ghetsis had some words with you."

"Yeah, he uh, spoke to everyone."

"Cheren told me that he singled you out."

"Yes," she answered.

"What did he say to you?" Francesca hissed.

Amalia was silent for a moment. What _had_ he said? Whatever it was, she remembered it had made her uneasy. "He threatened me and said that some members of his group think I'm some sort of legendary hero..."

"I don't buy that. There's no way they would accept that an outsider could do such a thing."

"Well, it's not so much that… It's more like a single, prominent member thinks I am," she finished, neglecting to mention that member by name.

"So he wants you to play along, then."

"I guess," Amalia conceded, not really wanting to talk about this subject.

"Well, are you?" asked Francesca.

"I'm uh, I'm honestly just trying not to think about it," said Amalia.

"Hmph. That's not a real answer."

"Well what _is_ a real answer, then? I don't know why you seem to think I _want_ to be involved in this, because guess what? I don't! Maybe if you could stop being antagonistic for ten whole seconds you would get that. Why would I _want_ to get tied up in all of this, Francesca?!"

"I –"

"Listen, I don't get it either!" she shrieked. "Why would anyone want me to play a role in their self-indulgent reenactment of some cosmic farce? Or is it that you're jealous? Because fine then, you can have it! I'd rather just keep being an outsider, if that's all right with you." By now everyone in the café was staring at the two of them, and Amalia quickly got up from the table and rushed outside, embarrassed by her outburst.

The cool autumn air stung at her face as she made her way through Opelucid's historic district, intending to spend the next couple hours ignoring her problems in peace. She entered the pokémon center and headed straight for the computer lab, setting her stuff down and opening her amanita account. It was probably best to print those forms out sooner rather than later. Liability, proof of identity, medical histories, they was really an unnecessarily large number of forms to sign. She needed proof of good health for all of her pokémon, the league didn't want to be responsible for spreading diseases or fleas or starting a new outbreak of the bubonic plague or whatever. All in all, it ended up costing Amalia a couple dollars. It would be a good idea to start scheduling vet appointments soon, before everyone else started rushing to get theirs done.

The evaluations wouldn't be a problem, Amalia thought as she collected her dirty clothes to start doing her laundry. Her pokémon were well-behaved, and they were all up-to-date on their shots. The few pokémon she'd caught herself had already been treated for any diseases they might've carried, and the ones she hadn't caught herself were healthy and displayed no obvious symptoms for anything. She had all the proper licensing and her pokémon obeyed and trusted her.

Amalia sorted through her damp clothes as she pulled them out of the dryer. For costing $1.25 per load, it sure did a terrible job. Not a single piece of clothing had even gotten remotely dry, and she'd had them in there for over an hour. She loaded her clothes into another dryer, hoping that this would be the one that actually worked. Two dollars and fifty cents! Just to dry her clothes! Was this not extortion?

She slammed the door to the dryer just as Francesca walked in carrying her own laundry. How she managed to look so serious despite having her arms full of socks and underwear was beyond Amalia's understanding.

"Don't use that dryer," said Amalia, pointing at the disobedient machine, "it's not doing its job."

She dropped half of her clothes into a washing machine, adding detergent and counting out her change. "A dollar twenty-five for one cycle? That's exorbitant," she muttered. She reopened the washing machine and shoved the rest of her clothes in. "It's not like there's any laundromats on this side of town. These machines barely even work half the time, and they want me to pay a dollar twenty-five to _maybe_ get my clothes clean? Bullshit. That's extortion."

"Yep."

"Amalia," Francesca began, turning towards her, "you wanted to know about my dad."

"That's a sudden change in topic."

"He managed to leave back when they weren't as strict, but his family wasn't so lucky. He was able to write letters to them at first, probably in secret. The Leaders probably thought that since he still had family in Team Plasma, he could be persuaded to return, but it later became apparent that wouldn't be the case."

Amalia stood in silence, listening to Francesca's story.

"Eventually his sisters stopped replying to his letters, so my father became determined to find them and get them out of there. He worked hard to gather information, but every time he got close to the trail, something would happen, and he'd be all the way back to square one."

"So Team Plasma knew about it."

"Yeah. That's when he figured out they were keeping tabs on him, watching his every move. So one night, he woke me up and told me to gather my things. We got in the car and left." Francesca sighed. "I spent most of my childhood moving from place to place. My dad did odd jobs here and there; construction, bartending, he was a cab driver for a while… But he'd already been marked by Team Plasma. Someone took him out while he was on the job, and fled in the ensuing chaos. My father's death was labeled an 'accident,' but I know better."

"How do you know it wasn't just an accident?" asked Amalia.

"Because what else do I have?" she shouted.

She was right. What else _did_ Francesca have, if not that? She had no family, no permanent place to call home, and from the sound of it, no real opportunities to make friends.

"I'm certain Zinzolin's the one who ordered the hit," said Francesca.

"What about your aunts?" Francesca gave her a look, so Amalia clarified: "Your father's sisters?"

"Asherah was a witness in the bomb trial. She gave out the names of fake Team Plasma leaders, keeping the real ones safe. Other than that, I don't know. In all likelihood, they're probably dead. I have no way of knowing."

"I think Anthea and Concordia are still alive," said Amalia.

"What?"

"They've been taking care of their younger brother."

"That's ridiculous. My grandmother died before they stopped sending letters. They would've mentioned another kid."

Amalia shrugged. "That's just what I know."

"Okay. Well thanks for telling me," said Francesca, who turned back to her washing machine.

If Francesca was correct, then Asherah was A.G., the prosecution's key witness in the bomb trial. She had given out the names of several Team Plasma "leaders," significantly speeding up the investigation and subsequent trial. This puzzled Amalia. If she was secretly writing letters to her brother all the way through '89, then why would she protect the identities of the very people who prevented her from seeing him? What connected her to the leaders of Team Plasma?

Amalia left the laundry room. Was Asherah one of those leaders? But why would one of Plasma's hidden leaders break the very rules she helped enforce? Amalia decided that was unlikely. Asherah was probably protecting them for another reason. Coercion, maybe? Maybe she was close to one of the leaders or something.

The television in the lobby was turned to the news, which was rehashing some interview that Ghetsis Harmonia had done earlier in the week. That he was involved with Team Plasma was still unknown to the public, and not for a lack of evidence; it just seemed that none of that information ever got to the press.

Somehow, the topic turned to policy regarding families and familiar units, and Amalia was reminded of something that she should have never forgotten in the first place: Ghetsis had been married. The nuptials had been announced in the paper, which meant it was listed in the public records and not some sort of backwoods cult wedding. Amalia could theoretically find a copy of the marriage license online. That is, if that information was reliable. No other website so much as mentioned the marriage, not even Ghetsis' Wikipedia page.

That newspaper was so old though, Amalia doubted that a physical copy still existed in any sort of readable condition. She could always search the public records, but she needed the names of both parties in order to actually get any results…

Anyway, she couldn't really think of a reason for someone to write a fake newspaper issue from 1989 just to tell a fake story about Ghetsis Harmonia getting married. The paper itself was a real publication and was currently still in circulation, and there was nothing someone could stand to gain from making up a marriage between a politician and an imaginary woman.

She'd have to look into it later. But if it was so difficult finding the article in the first place, then what was the likelihood she'd find anything discussing it? It would be easier if she had others helping her, like Bianca, Cheren, Burgh, or even Hector. But did she really want to get them involved, more so than they already were? If Francesca's story was true, then it meant that Team Plasma was willing to take out anybody who proved a threat to the cause. Amalia herself was probably already labeled as a threat, but did she want to drag her friends into it as well? Not really. Being responsible for her own death was one thing, but being responsible for her friends' and loved ones' deaths was absolutely intolerable. Asking Francesca for help wasn't an option, either, because in all likelihood she would see this research as a pointless distraction to her end goal.

If it was true, that Ghetsis had been married, then someone was trying their hardest to erase all evidence of it. What could be so detrimental about a politician's family life, that he'd need to go to great lengths to hide it? Amalia massaged her temples. Was this how conspiracy theorists felt about everyday life? Was she actually on to something, or was her tinfoil cap screwed on so tightly that it had merged with her brain?

If all this was true, then was Amalia prepared for the consequences? Was it really worth it to risk her life just to uncover the truth?

And, when the time came, would she be ready?

* * *

the super bowl was in my city! very exciting. The next time we host the super bowl, the Texans will be in it, I promise!

I was rooting for the Falcons. I'm not a big fan of the patriots, sorry ya'll. Amalia would've cheered for the patriots, though. Probably most of the characters in the story would.

Anyways, it was a very exciting game. I was sitting on the edge of my seat! The falcons were pretty fantastic for the first 3/4ths of the game... and the terry bradshaw commercial was very good. Terry Bradshaw went to the same college as my mom, you know. Like, at the same time. Terry Bradshaw was "oh its that guy, with the car." Every college has one of those.

there's a lot of implications in this chapter, but I don't think they're anything different than what I've been implying for the past three chapters

I'm estimating that there's about three chapters to go. I have the last two planned out so clearly. or maybe theres only two chapters left? I'm not sure. The problem is, there's not much to say about the last couple gym battles.

also, you know how I have that graphic violence warning up there? yeah, that will come in to play very soon, just you wait. I can't write a story without extreme violence in at least at ONE part, can I? I haven't decided how graphic I actually want it, because there's a very fine line between plot-justified and fetishistic, and most of my violence tends towards fetishistic, which is definitely not what I wanna do.

footnotes:

1) a big theme of the games is truth vs ideals, which is stupid bc truth is just a construct of humanity. it's all dependent on our perceptions and stuff. If i put a child in a box, and never told him that China was a country or a thing that existed, then what is China to him? its nothing, because to him, China never existed within his perceptions. Basically, the way humans perceive the truth is like the allegory of Plato's Cave, where we are prisoners watching a shadow performance on the wall. Except, instead of us eventually escaping and seeing the "true" earth, there's just more shadow puppets, because there is no "true" /

2) ok that got off hand. I know Amalia is the supposed hero of "ideals" despite being arguably the less idealistic out of her and N, but lets look at it this way; N, for most of his life, has been utterly convinced that his ideas represent the way things should be, basically, the 'true' form of the world. The current world is imperfect, and he seeks to shape the world into a version that represents this 'true' version of the earth. The problem is, the truth he has been raised on is very far from what is real. In this, he's the prisoner in Plato's cave. He sees the images on the wall, and that's all that there is to the world as far as he knows. And as far as he knows, he knows that his ideas are Right and Good.

Amalia has a nihilistic worldview, but at the same time, she has deep-seated beliefs regarding what is and isn't right. While she is kind of mean, she has a pretty strong sense of morality. (and let's remember, morality isn't something that is inherently 'true,' as one's morals are influenced by the society in which one is raised. Amalia values, above all else, justice. What's fair? What isn't fair? She thinks that the world and the universe should operate in a way that is most fair, and gets upset when it inevitably doesn't.

The thing is, truth and ideals are very closely intertwined, you can't just take one without the other, because both are heavily influenced by personal perceptions of the universe. You can't just take one character and say "this character strictly represents the truth" or the other way around. So yeah, there are a lot of reasons as to why i gave each character the dragon i did.

also i just think reshiram is ugly. it has a penis, and thats gross. "more feminine design" my ass.

until next time, friends


	13. No Other

happy holiday

chapter warnings: animals beating each other up

I've edited some of the older chapters, but those edits are only on AO3. Editing old chapters on this website is way too much work, especially for small fixes and stuff. So the AO3 version of this story is more accurate.

* * *

Hecate dodged the garchomp's attack, hissing and spitting poison at it as she climbed one of her many threads. It responded by throwing itself forward, tearing through half of Hecate's web and causing the ariados to swing haphazardly. Swaying, Hecate spit another glob of poison and digestive enzymes at the garchomp, this time hitting it square in the face and splashing into its eyes.

"Jabberjaws, return! That's enough!" called the other trainer, eager to treat his pokémon's injuries.

Amalia called Hecate back and gave the ariados a pat.

Bianca walked with her back to the Pokémon Center. "Is there, like, a sugar daddy thing, but for lesbians?" Bianca wondered aloud as she handed her pokéballs to the attendant.

"You mean sugar... mommas?" Amalia asked. "What brought this about?"

"Yeah! I was just thinking about it. You could get your entire tuition or whatever paid off just by cozying up to some old rich person."

Amalia raised an eyebrow. "Is that something you're considering?"

Bianca made a face accompanied by a vague hand gesture. "It's tempting. I mean, if somebody wants to waste their money on me, who am I to say no?"

"Yeah, but you have to pretend to like them, or y'know," Amalia mimed putting a dick in her mouth.

"Not if I get me a sugar momma," stated Bianca.

"You know what I mean."

"You think you're ready for your badge match tomorrow?" asked Bianca.

Amalia shrugged. "…eh, maybe?"

"How can you sound so unconcerned?"

"If I lose, I lose. There's no use fretting about it, really," she responded, her words different from how she really felt. She wasn't sure who she was trying to convince with her nonchalance.

Cheren and Francesca had already won the badge from Opelucid Gym, which meant only she and Bianca still had to get theirs. It was the last month before the deadline to qualify for the championships, and everybody was scrambling to finish the things they had put off doing. Nearly every gym was completely booked with pokémon battles. She hadn't heard from Burgh for at least a week and a half, which she assumed meant he was actually doing his job for once. All in all, the upbeat and talkative atmosphere of most pokémon centers and gyms had been replaced by one that was both solemn and panicked.

Sure, she could win against Drayden, there was no doubt in her mind about that. It was just… everything that would come after that. The Elite Four, the championship tournament, whatever Team Plasma's plans were, _Christmas_ … Just a bunch of stuff she wanted over with, but without actually having to do anything about it herself. She was tired.

When Amalia arrived at the Opelucid City gym the next afternoon, Drayden wasn't there.

"Do you know where your grandfather is?" she asked Iris, who was sitting on a bench reading A Separate Peace.

"Maybe," she said, "what for?"

Amalia checked the clock on her phone. "My gym match is supposed to be uh, right now. I'd kind of like to get it over with."

Iris smiled and tossed her book carelessly aside, standing up and posing dramatically. "Granddad's not here right now, which means _I'm_ the gym leader you're going to fight!"

"Oh. I kind of wanted to battle Drayden," said Amalia half-jokingly.

"Like it or leave it, you twat!" Iris shouted, using her full eighth-grade vocabulary.

They stood to face each other in the arena. "Aren't you still in school?" asked Amalia.

"Yeah, so? I'm only the gym leader in the afternoons and weekends. I'm not missing anything." Iris sent out her first pokémon, a druddigon. "I'm just as strong as my granddad, y'know. I could do this full time if I really wanted, he just wants me to finish school before I take over," she said, motioning for her pokémon to attack.

"Oh, that makes sense," said Amalia. Hecate was currently skittering across the arena, avoiding the druddigon's repeated attacks. If the light were to shine in just the right angle, Amalia would be able to see a tangle of fine thread, crisscrossing the battlefield. The web was coated in a toxin that caused numbness and mild gastrointestinal distress. Amalia thought it was clever.

Iris saw right through it. "Rudy, stand back! Torch the arena!" she shouted, urging her pokémon to use flamethrower.

But Hecate was already waiting, having snuck up while Iris and Druddigon were distracted. She took the dragon by surprise, hitting him in the stomach and stunning him for a moment. It was a brilliant move, but Amalia knew it wouldn't work twice. Hecate landed a couple more blows and then fell back.

The next few minutes played out like an extended game of chicken, with neither pokémon wanting to get too close to the other, yet not really equipped to attack from afar. The pokémon circled one another around the arena, sizing each other up and waiting for the other to make the first move.

Suddenly, the druddigon lunged forward claws-first, catching Hecate on the back before she could leap away. He lifted her up, his claws digging into her abdomen, but Hecate managed to wiggle free, grabbing onto some webbing that hung from the ceiling. The druddigon attempted to go after her, but tripped over its feet.

"While they were circling each other, I had Hecate lay her thread all over the arena," said Amalia.

"That was good thinking," responded Iris.

"Thanks."

Hecate leapt backwards, landing with her front legs held up in her full threat display. While the druddigon continued to struggle in the tangle of thread, Amalia wracked her brain, calculating her next move. Even restrained, a megahorn would be too easy for the Druddigon to counter… Hecate needed to do something that was harder to detect.

At Amalia's command, Hecate seemed to melt into the shadows at the edge of the arena, making herself seen only to attack.

"Oh wow, shadow sneak, huh?" Iris said, complementing Amalia's technique. Sensing her own pokémon had had enough, Iris withdrew it from battle, sending out her next pokémon, a Haxorus.

The dragon immediately got tangled up in some leftover webbing, and Amalia used that opportunity to withdraw Hecate and send Tiamat out to finish the battle.

"That was a great battle!" Iris shouted after Amalia felled her last pokémon. "That was really, really exciting! You're _good_!"

"Um, thanks?" Amalia said.

N was waiting for her outside.

"I wasn't expecting to see you here," said Amalia. "You didn't have to wait out in the cold, you could've come inside where it's warmer."

"I'm used to it," he said.

"You don't look like it, you're shivering."

N smiled a little. "It might be a little cold," he admitted.

They sat in a booth at Panera after ordering their food.

"Is… something the matter?" Amalia asked.

"No, why would there be?"

"You usually only seek me out when you have some long philosophical monologue planned out. So what's it gonna be today? Kierkegaard? Kant?"

"No. I just like being around you."

Amalia blushed and averted her eyes. Why'd he always have to say such embarrassing things? N was just so _earnest_ about everything. It hurt her heart a little.

"Everything is so confusing. I tried to learn about people by watching television, but I just got more confused. It was just a bunch of people yelling at each other about fatherhood. Someone was afraid of pickles."

"You tried to learn about human interaction by watching _Maury_?"

"And The Office," he added.

Amalia raised her eyebrows. "Oh, I'm sure that was helpful."

"It was, actually," he said.

After they finished eating, they walked around the city's historic district. There were all sorts of lights put up for the holidays. Amalia could hear at least three different storefronts playing Jingle Bell Rock, which was unfortunate. She really hated Christmas music.

It was scientifically proven that the only good christmas songs were "All I Want for Christmas is You" and that one by George Michael. Unfortunately, every single store seemed content to play every song _but_ those two. After all, why play decent music when you can just put Jingle Bell Rock on repeat? Maybe it was supposed to inspire people to get their damn shopping done and get out.

N furrowed his brow. "Why's everything so lit up? It wasn't like this a couple weeks ago," he stated.

She looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "It's for Christmas."

"What?" he said flatly.

"Y'know, _Christmas?_ "

"No, I don't know."

"It's a Christian holiday. It's supposed to commemorate the birth of their god. People get really into it... I thought you knew what Christmas was. I mean, you laughed at that joke I made…"

N froze. "What… joke…?"

"You know, the one about my cousin's name, Natividad…"

"Oh, yeah. I did, didn't I? Huh."

"It's fine." Amalia felt so dumb. Of course he didn't know! The poor guy grew up in the fucking woods!

"I've been meaning to ask you," she began, "how'd you end up in the woods anyway? Y'know, when you were a kid, if you don't mind me asking."

"My mother didn't want me," N said, his tone impassive, like he was merely discussing the weather, "Ghetsis told me that she wanted to get back at him, so when she left him she took me and abandoned me in the woods, hoping he'd never find me."

"N, that's terrible..."

"I don't let it bother me," he said, shrugging and looking away. "I don't remember her much anyway."

Amalia didn't know how to respond to that. How could she?

"Besides," N said, "I don't regret my upbringing. I don't think I'd want it to be any different. After all, if it weren't for me, then who would be the one to free pokémon from their captivity?"

"Someone… else?" Amalia suggested.

"I don't think so," he said, shaking his head. "I, alone, was chosen for this, to continue the battle the heroes of Truth and Ideals fought long ago, to bring it to fruition. Once I succeed, then pokémon will be truly free."

Amalia knew that "success" in this case meant defeating the other chosen hero. Amalia also knew that said chosen hero, in N's mind, was herself.

"Just… whatever you do, I don't want anything to happen to Hecate."

"When I win, then everyone will have to release their pokémon. That includes you, too," he said.

'When,' not 'if.' There was no uncertainty in his mind. Amalia sighed. "I know, just… until then, alright?"

"Alright," he answered.

A couple days later, Amalia found herself in Addersfield, a suburb in north Opelucid and the location of the Unova League HQ. It was only mid-December, meaning that the lobby was relatively uncrowded. She imagined if it was even a week later, the place would be packed with people trying to battle the elite four. She handed her paperwork to the lady at the desk and sat down in an empty area of the reception room. Unfortunately, Adrien Miller and Mayra Thibodeaux, the world's most annoying couple, decided to come sit nearby.

"When we're together, we're like, unstoppable," Mayra gushed.

"Sorry, Amalia, but there's no way we could lose, not to the Elite Four or to anyone else," Adrien bragged, "besides, I've seen you battle, and you're no match for the both of us together."

"Well yeah, that's two against one, you'd have a pretty big advantage," said Amalia.

"When we battle together, it's like our hearts and souls are connected. We may be two people, but we battle as one," Adrien replied, as Mayra giggled and squeezed his arm.

"That… still counts as two-versus-one…" Amalia said hesitantly.

"There's no double battle division in the Unova league," interrupted N, who was coming to sit by Amalia uninvited, just like everyone else today, apparently.

"We know that," replied Mayra.

N continued: "You were just talking about how you were going to battle the Elite Four together, and that's clearly not allowed for…"

"Ugh, god, nobody asked you," Adrien snapped, pulling Mayra with him as he got up to change seats.

N sat down in the seat next to her. "Who said you could sit there?" said Amalia.

"This is a public space, I don't need an invite to sit wherever I want," he replied.

"Well aren't _you_ a smart aleck today?"

"But I'm always smart," he said, sounding a bit confused.

"It's a figure of speech," Amalia explained. "It's like, someone who always has clever responses for everything, but in an annoying way."

"Oh."

"You've never heard that phrase before?" she asked.

"Not that I can remember. I was never taught about colloquialisms or stuff like that."

"Most people aren't, it's just something you kind of pick up as you go along. Kind of like cuss words. Most people aren't going to go out of their way to teach small children the word 'fuck,' but you still see seven and eight year olds using it all the time."

"I didn't know the word 'fuck' when I was seven years old."

"That's because nobody ever used the fuck word around you. You weren't surrounded by people your age so you didn't have the opportunity to learn what fuck meant."

He seemed to accept her answer. "There's so many things I never knew about," he said, not really talking to Amalia this time.

"Well, they say you learn something new every day." Amalia shrugged. "You learned different things from the rest of us when you were a kid, so you're kind of just catching up I guess."

The conversation trailed off, and N started playing with his puzzle cube.

"Are you nervous?" Amalia asked.

"No," N said, still fiddling with the cube, "I'm confident in my plan. I have to succeed, there are so many pokémon counting on me… Once I become champion, then everyone will see the errors of their ways, and understand how harmful it is to keep pokémon in captivity."

Nothing was that easy, that cut-and-dry. That he'd win, give a little speech, and everyone would release their pokémon? She couldn't help but bring it up: "You know your people have already started taking people's pokémon, right?"

"I think they should wait," he said.

"Oh, and you probably also know that the pokémon they stole were kept in a refrigerated warehouse instead of being set free," said Amalia in a fit of schadenfreude, perfectly aware that he probably didn't know any of that but unable to stop herself.

He immediately tensed up. "I – what?"

"I shouldn't've told you that," Amalia muttered.

His fists were clenched so tight his hands were shaking. "Amalia, what are you talking about? Amalia?"

Well, she couldn't back out now. "Me and Francesca broke into a cold storage building about, uh, four months ago? And that's what we found."

Crossing his arms tightly, N narrowed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, obviously wary at the mention of Francesca's involvement. Amalia knew he'd never gotten over his initial dislike of her, and well, Francesca had never really given him reason to do so. Amalia wondered if N knew anything about Francesca's family, of her connection to Team Plasma. Probably not.

"You're just saying that to get a rise out of me, just like everything else you say," he said accusingly.

"If that's all I ever do, then how come you still –"

N cut her off. "Why do you do that?" he spat, his question stunning Amalia into silence. "I've spent over half a year around humans, I know that's not how people talk to each other! I may not know a lot about… interacting with others, but that doesn't mean I'm incapable of observation. I'm not _stupid_."

"N, that's not what I'm –"

"Don't deny it, Amalia."

"I'm not saying I _don't_ , I'm just not doing it right – ugh, never _mind_!" she said as the receptionist called her name. Amalia grabbed her stuff and – as angrily as possible, so that N would know she was mad – walked to the front desk.

"Ok, sooo, all your papers are good to go," the receptionist began, "are you sure these six are the pokémon you want to battle with? You can't change your mind in the middle of battling the Elite Four. Though, if you qualify, you are permitted to change your team between now and the championships."

"I won't," said Amalia.

"I'm not saying you have to, I'm just letting you know it's an option." The receptionist looked at a copy of Amalia's file pulled up on the computer screen, clicking a couple of boxes. Amalia gazed at the receptionist's desk disinterestedly, decorated with photographs detailing events in this woman's life: her wedding photo, pictures of her kids, pictures of her pets (a lycanroc and an arcanine – the lady was obviously a dog person).

"You'll be able to battle each of the Elite Four as they become available," the receptionist said, "the order's not important. You're permitted to heal in between each battle. Good luck."

Amalia was ushered through one of the doors to begin her challenge. She put everything else to the back of her mind.

The Elite Four existed to challenge one's abilities as a pokémon trainer, moreso than the gyms were able to. For someone with properly trained pokémon and a strong bond of trust between them, it wasn't exceedingly difficult. The Elite Four challenges were meant to weed out the people whose strategies revolved around trying to outclass their opponents, trainers who relied solely on the brute strength of their pokémon to get through the gyms.

The Elite Four was a test of strategy, not power, and thus favored those who could think on the fly - who were willing to take risks and experiment with the outcomes - which is why Amalia had no idea how N had managed to get through. Maybe he _had_ taken her criticisms to heart. Whatever.

What use was a pokémon champion in a world where nobody had pokémon? What was even the point? Had N even thought that far?

Amalia went home on the 20th. Christmas wasn't any different this year, despite the added solemnity from a death in the family, though everyone refused to talk about it. Her cousins were currently running around and screaming at one another.

"That's it, Christmas is cancelled," Hector said, looking like he'd rather be run over by an 18-wheeler than alive at the moment.

"Why's Christmas cancelled?" their cousin Rosario asked, temporarily halting her fight with her brother.

Hector paid her no mind, continuing to speak in his own little world. "Santa's not coming this year."

"Santa isn't real, everyone knows that," spat Nate in his typical thirteen-year-old derision.

At this, Hector seemed to take notice, turning his head to face the other boy. "Not anymore. Not since Tim Allen murdered him back in the 90's."

"That was just a movie!" one of the twins shouted. Amalia didn't even have to look to know the kind of expression her brother was giving them at the moment, some sort of pitying stare designed to make people believe his bullshit. It usually only worked on kids, but she'd seen it work on N too.

After the holidays, Hector drove her back up to Opelucid. "Man, I wish I could stay here, it's so boring at home. Mom's been such a drag."

"That's not her fault," said Amalia.

"I know, I'm not blaming her for it or anything. It's just really getting me down. I think I'm starting to become a drag, too," said Hector. "It's just lonely without you around."

In the first round of eliminations, Amalia was up against Dirk Santacruz, who had once done backup dancing in one of Beyonce's music videos - Amalia knew this because he never shut up about it. She'd gone on a couple of dates with him some months ago, the first of which consisted of him showing her said music video and telling her all about the set, and, to be fair, if Amalia had been in the same position she'd never stop talking about it either.

"Oh, man! Talk about bad luck!" he exclaimed, "being matched against you in the very first round!"

"Who knows?" Amalia responded. "Maybe a witch cursed me, and I'm suddenly terrible at pokémon battling? Maybe I'll get struck by lightning in the middle of the match and you'll win by default?"

"Pfft, don't joke like that," he said.

He would be leading with his darumaka. Like Dirk himself, all of his pokémon relied on physical motion to be at the top of their game. Restrict that, and his team lost its footing.

Amalia was ready.

* * *

sorry for the delay. I started working full time for a lawyer back in April, while still being part-time at the mall. Then I decided I was going to apply for grad school, so basically I've been working on that since September (still working on it, the school I really want to attend's application is due on the eighth, and the last one is due in February).

During this time I was also hit while coming home by a driver running a stop sign, which totaled my car, so I had to buy a new one. And I knocked over a glass of water onto my computer. It worked fine for two hours, then the keyboard gradually stopped working properly, until the only letters that worked were "w" and a bunch of numbers.

I also got back into playing skyrim. I'm playing it as God intended: by modding the everloving shit out of it until it can barely run.

So yeah, I've been very busy. I will probably have the next chapter out by the end of february.

footnotes:

1\. i hate american evangelism, and i hate the expression of christmas as an evangelical christian holiday. i hate protestant christianity on a visceral level, and unfortunately the christmas holiday is so tainted with american protestantism to me that it invokes the disgust reflex within me. christmas is an ok holiday by itself.

2\. Jesus was most likely born in the springtime. Christmas is just the Roman rewrite of the winter solstice holiday.

3\. I hate Tim Allen on a visceral level. I cannot stand to look at his smug asshole face. How anyone can be around him without beating him to a bloody pulp is beyond me.

4\. the pokemon battle between Iris and Amalia was going to be longer but I didn't feel like looking up the movesets of either zweilous or haxorus and most certainly didn't feel like scripting the fucking battle choreography.

5\. the only other good christmas music is the Manheim Steamroller christmas album.

also, if you haven't already, go see The Shape of Water. it's absolutely fucking incredible, and the fish man is hot


End file.
